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THE LAND OP ISRAEL, 



ACCORDING TO 



THE COVENANT 



WITH 



ABRAHAM, WITH ISAAC, AND WITH JACOB. 



BY ALEXANDER KEITH, D.D., 

AUTHOR OF "THE EVIDENCE OF PROPHECY," "SIGNS OP THE TIMES," 
"DEMONSTRATION OF THE TRUTH OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION." 



N E W-Y O R K: 

HARPER & BROTHERS, 82 CLIFF-STREET 

18 4 4. 



TO 



JOHN ABERCROMBIE, M.D., 

2rt)5 foUotoiufl ^Treatise (s XnscrilicH, 

IN TOKEN OF CHRISTIAN ESTEEM, 

BY 

THE AUTHOR. 



9 



PREFACE. 



The following treatise was commenced with the in- 
tention, on the part of the author, of drawing out a few 
retrospective and prospective sketches of Judea and 
Judaism. On his return from Palestine, he was urged 
by the esteemed friend to whom it is inscribed to pub- 
lish the substance of an evening's conversation in his 
hospitable house. He naturally reverted to the cove- 
nant with Abraham, as the groundwork of such an 
essay. That subject alone, in connexion with kindred 
themes, called for a more full illustration than he at 
first anticipated. And as the subsequent essay, which 
thus originated, may be considered as, in part, a se- 
quel to his Treatise on the Evidence of Prophecy, it 
may also form the introduction to other Scriptural 
topics, of momentous import to Gentiles as well as 
Jews. 

The writer has thankfully to express his obligations 
to Colonel Chesney for the use of his map constructed 
for his forthcoming work on the Euphrates Expedition, 
with many of the proof-sheets of which he kindly fur- 
nished him ; to Colonel M'Niven, for the Views of 
Csesarea, and the Convent at Zahli ; to Mr. Bucking- 
ham, for liberty to use several plates from his Travels 
among the Arab Tribes ; to Mr. Ainsworth, and to 
the publisher of his Researches in Assyria, for the View 
of Mount Casius ; and to Messrs. Fisher, for permis- 
sion to insert the first and largest plates, taken from 
their splendid work, " Views of Syria." 

November, 1843. 

A8 



LIST OF ENGRAVINGS. 

DIRECTIONS TO THE BINDER. 



Map of the Land of Israel according to the Covenant, to face Title Page. 

Map showing the entrance into Hamath 94 

Remains of the Port of Seleucia 109 

Junction of a Tributary Stream with the Orontes . . . .111 

Roman Ruin at Gunnawat ^ ... ... 256 

Castle and Ruins of Salghud J 

Castle and Plain of Emeza \ 268 

Caravan on the Plains of the Haouran J 

Scene in the Mountains east of the Haouran ) 280 
Passage of the Zerka m Bashan ' 

View of Tiberias 296 

Gate at Antioch 320 

Portico of the Temple of the Sun at Baalbec 325 

Temple at Baalbec 327 

Grand Gallery at Palmyra 337 

Jerusalem from the South 349 

Jerusalem from the North ib. 

Gardens of Solomon ib. 

Convent of Zahle 353 

The Kadischa of Lebanon 358 

Mount Tabor 362 

Cedars of Lebanon 367 



INTRODUCTION. 



True in all their emphatic meaning have been the 
words of the prophet for many ages past, Who shall 
have pity upon thee, O Jerusalem ? or who shall bemoan 
thee ? or who shall turn aside to ask how thou doest ?^ 
Yet the time cometh when the truth of other words of 
more propitious omen shall be as clearly seen : " For 
the Lord hath proclaimed unto the end of the world, 
say ye to the daughter of Zion, Behold, thy salvation 
cometh ; behold his reward is with him, and his work 
before him, and they shall call them, The holy people, 
The redeemed of the Lord : and thou shall be called, 
sought out, a city not forsaken 

While the Jews have been scattered among all na- 
tions under heaven, the land of Israel — except in history 
and in the associations pertaining to ancient times, 
which suffer it not to be dissevered from the minds or 
memories of Christians or Jews — was long almost for- 
gotten as an existing country, and its actual condition 
in a great measure unknown. After the age of the 
Crusades, it ceased to exercise any influence on the 
world at large, or any peculiar general interest in Asia 
or Europe. Its political importance was gone ; and 
by the discovery of a new passage to India, the line 
of communication between these two quarters of the 
world was turned far from its shores. Its coast, though 
the cradle of commerce, was desolate, lone, and unvis- 
ited, the prey of barbarism and the resort of wild 
beasts. And it was only towards the close of the last, 
and the commencement of the present century, that 
Syria began to be inquired after, and to reassert its 
claim to the notice of the world. Bereaving the na- 
tions of men, as foretold, and partly fulfilled, it became 
* Jer., XV., 5, t Isa., Ixii., 11, 1?, 



X 



INTRODUCTION. 



during the Crusades the common grave of Europe, of 
Asia, and of Africa, yet it could not be rescued from 
the hands of infidel but not idolatrous Moslems, but 
was left to the unmarked progress of decay and deso- 
lation, till its once vine-clad mountains are bare, and 
its cities waste, and its plains desolate, and nothing but 
the scantling of a population left in the land, for the 
possession of which many myriads had contended, and 
which in times more ancient had been thickly studded 
with cities. Yet these, when reduced to desolation, 
^-had ruins sufficient in an inquiring age to attract the 
traveller, and to command admiration. They were 
successively searched out, visited, and portrayed, till, 
strange to say, Tadmor or Palmyra, Baalath or Baal- 
bec, built by Solomon, Petra and Geresa, became, in 
succession, novelties to the world. New causes speed- 
ily conspired to attach a higher interest than that of 
curiosity to Syria. Lying at the extremity of the 
Mediterranean, between Britain and India, its locality 
in a commercial view raised it, by the invention of 
steam navigation, into a new importance ; and the traf- 
fic, or at least communication between Asia and Eu- 
rope, pointed, after the lapse of ages, towards its direct 
and original channels. And as the contest between 
these quarters of the globe for its possession had rivet- 
ed on it in former ages the attention of the world, so 
all eyes were fixed on it again in the course of the last 
few years, when the question of its subserviency to the 
Pacha of Egypt or the Sultan of Turkey was a ques- 
tion of the integrity or existence of the Ottoman Em- 
pire, and, consequently, of peace or war throughout 
Europe or the world. 

But the heritage of Jocob, however desolate it may 
lie, or by whatever hordes of Gentiles it may be trod- 
den down, has for higher interest attached to it than 
that of being a field for the inspection of ruins, and a 
higher destiny to fulfil than that of a bond of peace, or 
a cause of war, or any apportioning of earthly king- 
doms. Of that land, even as of the people whose it is 
by the covenant of the Lord God of their fathers, WQ 



INTRODUCTION. 



xi 



can speak as of no other. Though it had passed as an 
existing state into obhvion, and men, in famihar phrase, 
had lost sight of it, and no one bemoaned it, yet th& 
eyes of the Lord are always upon it, even as he hath 
declared of Zion, I have graven thee upon the palms of 
my hands ; thy walls are continually before me ; thy 
destroyers and they that made thee desolate shall go forth 
of thee. Not to regard the peculiarity of the land, as 
well as of the people Israel, in respect to the threaten- 
ed curses and the promised blessings, is to miss the 
proper character, and to omit the chief discriminating 
feature of the one and of the other. It would be as 
unwise as wicked to qualify an historical statement, or 
wrest a geographical fact in accordance with a fancy, 
whether to show that all the history and all the facts 
pertaining to their land may be explained without a 
miracle, or whether, more philosophically, we think it 
be indubitably held, in illustrating the prophecies con- 
cerning both, as miraculous throughout, the hand of 
the Lord being revealed in it all. The facts are the 
same, and have to be stated with the same precision 
and truth, whether predicted or not. The additional 
fact, that they were foretold, adds a new import to 
them ah, and solves a problem otherwise inexplicable. 
A mystery, in the marvellous transition it has under- 
gone, seems to hang over the land as over the people ; 
and the desolation of the one is analogous in character, 
and coincident in time, with the dispersion of the other. 
But the sure word of prophecy, to v)hich we do well to 
take heed, unfolds the future, as it revealed the past, 
and lays open to the believer's view the declared, but 
yet unaccomplished purpose of the Lord, which can 
never be disannulled. The everlasting covenant with 
Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob, concerning the 
land as the everlasting possession of their seed, was 
made with these faithful fathers of the Hebrew race 
before that covenant was made with the Israelites 
under Moses and Joshua, the curses of which, not heard 
of till then, have come upon the land. As it preceded, 
it is destined to survive them all. Coming history must 



INTRODUCTION. 



therefore bear its part, like all the past, in the actual 
and finally palpable development, in the sight of all 
men, of the counsels of the Holy One of Israel, the God 
of the whole earth, as He yet shall he called. And all 
the idol-devotees of a more w^orldly policy shall be 
brought to see, as time advances and momentous events 
ensue with a closeness and velocity hitherto unparallel- 
ed, that all their schemes which accord not with the 
faith that He is the Ruler among the nations, shall lie 
as low as the once mighty Babylon, of which nothing is 
left, and which has crumbled into dust before His word. 

The full accomplishment of the judgments that were 
to come upon the land, is the harbinger of the comple- 
tion, in the latter days, of the covenant of promise. 
Expatriated for nearly eighteen centuries as the Jews 
have been, all connexion between them and the land 
of their fathers, were they a people numbered among 
the nations, might well have seemed ere now, so far as 
human foresight could discern, to have ceased forever. 
And yet the separate, though similar fates of the land 
and of the people are, in fact, so closely linked togeth- 
er and interwoven in the unerring Word of the un- 
changeable Jehovah, that clearly as the long-continued 
blindness and dispersion of the Jews were foretold, so 
clearly does the very degree of desolation to which 
their fatherland should finally be reduced, rank among 
the measures of the time of their return. 

The Lord said to Isaiah, when he heheld his glory, 
" Go, and tell this people. Hear ye indeed, but under- 
stand not ; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. Make 
the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, 
and shut their eyes ; lest they see with their eyes, and 
hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, 
and convert, and be healed. Then said I, How long ? 
And He answered, Until the cities be wasted without 
inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land 
be utterly desolate, and the Lord have removed men 
far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst 
of the land. But yet in it shall be a tenth, and it shall 
return, and shall be eaten : as a teil-tree and as au oak, 



INTRODUCTION. 



whose substance is in them when they cast their leaves, 
so the holy seed shall be the substance thereof."* 

The land of Israel, as possessed and peopled of old 
by the seed of Jacob, and also the neighbouring re- 
gions, which, as shown in the following pages, were 
included within the promised inheritance, are so full of 
literal illustrations of literal predictions, that, as the 
author has been enabled to show in successive editions 
of the Evidence of Prophecy, the truth of more than 
two hundred texts, or upward of a hundred distinct 
prophecies, may be read in the history and existing 
state of the land, and of its desolate cities. f The 
curses of the covenant which the Israelites brake are 
there as legible, word for word, as in the oracles of the 
living God, whose covenant it was, and who made it 
with the Israelites when they first entered into Canaan. 
They have taken effect till nothing more thai\ the pre- 
dicted tenth is left. 

The hope expressed in the preface to the first edition 
of that treatise, of bringing the subject of the literal 
fulfilment of prophecy into view, especially as illustra- 
ted by the discoveries of recent travellers, has been 
amply realized ; and many prophetic topics that need- 
ed illustration are now familiar to thousands. It is, 
therefore, needless to repeat the proofs of the existing 
desolation, or to trace anew the discriminating features 
of the ruined cities, as drawn of old by the prophets. 
But the hope is cherished of presenting many of them 
to the Christian public, and of setting them before un- 
believers, without the aid either of the pen or of the 
pencil. J Yet, as one reason, among many others, for 
exciting interest in another theme, and for regarding 
other words of the Lord that have to be accomplished 
in another way, the degree of desolation marked in the 
preceding words uttered by the Lord in the hearing of 
the prophet, as he looked upon his glory, may here 
prove a befitting introduction to a covenant without a 

* Tsa., vi„ 9-13, t Evidence of Prophecy, p. 97-263. 

t By a process which may be said to be natural, the calyQtype, daguerr6» 



xiv 



INTUODUCTION, 



curse. No man hath seen the Father at any time ; 
but centuries before his incarnation, the Lord of hosts, 
the eternal Word, who is the same yesterday, to-day, 
and forever, spake to the prophet of the long-continued 
blindness and impenitence of Israel, and answered his 
question. How long 1 by an appeal to what the land 
should finally become ere that blindness should cease. 
But the Lord did not appear in his glory to Isaiah, 
amid the hallelujahs of the cherubim, and send an angel 
to touch his lips with a live coal from off the altar, to 
enable him to ask the question, in order that He him- 
self might return to it an unmeaning or indefinite an- 
swer. It becomes man, who is a worm, to regard with 
reverence, and to hear with faith, the words which the 
Lord hath spoken. " My days are hke a shadow, that 
declineth," saith the Psalmist ; " and I am withered 
like grass. But thou, O Lord, shalt endure forever, 
and thy remembrance unto all generations. Thou 
shalt arise, and have mercy upon Zion : for the time to 
favour her, yea, the set time, is come. For thy ser- 
vants take pleasure in her stones, and favour the dust 
thereof; so the heathen shall fear the name of the 
Lord, and all the kings of the earth thy glory. When 
the Lord shall build up Zion, He shall appear in his 
glory. He will regard the prayer of the destitute, and 
not despise their prayer. This shall he written for the 
generation to come ; and the people which shall be cre- 
ated shall praise the Lord." As thus it is written for 
a generation to come, so the Lord appeared in his 
glory to Isaiah, when He made known to him the 
time of the final termination of the blindness of Israel. 

Earthly sovereigns are the executioners of the judg- 
ments of the heavenly King ; and do, even when it is 
not in their heart to think so, all His pleasure. Often, 
as unconsciously, have skeptical writers, like Gibbon 
or Yolney, recorded the things by which His word is 
illustrated. Bat it is worthy of remark, as if official evi- 
dence were needed here, that the British government, 
a few years ago, sent forth a commissioner to make in- 
quiry, and to report on the state of Syria, whose re-? 



INTRODUCTION. 



XV 



port, when completed, was presented to both houses of 
Parliament by command of her majesty.* It supplied 
some striking additional illustrations, seemingly uncon- 
sciously given, of literal prophecies concerning the 
land.f Among these, not the least remarkable is the 
very first paragraph of the appendix, or the report of 
Mr. Consul Moore, an intelligent observer, who has re- 
sided for years in the land. 

" Syria is a country whose population bears no pro- 
portion to its superficies, and the inhabitants may be 
considered, on the most moderate calculation, as re- 
duced to a tithe of what the soil could abundantly 
maintain under a wiser system of administration."J 
And in the body of the report it is stated that " the 
country is capable of producing tenfold the present 
produce."^ 

According to the Word of the Lord, They that dwell 
therein are desolate, and few men left.\\ The city that 
went out by a thousand shall leave a hundred, and that 
which went out by a hundred shall leave ten, to the house 
of Israel.^ Make the hearts of this people fat, and 
make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes, <^c. And I 
said. How long ? And He answered. Until the cities 
be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without 
man, &c. ; but yet in it shall be a tenth, &c. 

Is it not time, then, to look to another covenant than 
that which bears the curses that have indeed devoured 
the land, but have also their term assigned them by 
the Lord ? 

" The covenant of works, and the covenant of grace," 
have often divided Christian theology between them, 
as in some respects they rightly may. But there are 
other or more defined covenants in the Word of God, 
to which it becomes believers to have respect. That 
which God made with Abraham, of promise and of 
grace, is everlasting, and knows no other termination 
than that of the heavens and of the earth. 

* Report on the Commercial Statistics of Syria, London, 1840. 

t Evidence of Prophecy, p. 427-9. t Report on Syria, p. 111. 

^ Report on Syria, p. 90. Il Isaiah, xxiv., 6, ^ Amos, v., 3. 



xvi 



INTRODUCTION. 



In the subsequent pages the perpetuity of that cove- 
nant concerning- the land, and its connexion with that 
which was made with the Israelites when the Lord 
brought them out of Egypt, and with the new and ever- 
^ lasting covenant which He will make with the house 
of Israel, and with the house of Judah, and also with 
the covenant which the Lord made with David con- 
cerning his throne, is, in the first place, brought within 
the view of the reader. The borders of the land, not 
as it was anciently possessed, but as set of the Lord, 
naturally form the immediately succeeding theme, 
which is treated at so great length as to demand an 
apology. But so little was the writer aware, ere he 
entered on the investigation, of the full extent, especial- 
ly on the north, of the Scriptural boundaries of the 
promised land, that, when requested at a recent date 
to mark their limits for the construction of a map, he 
drew a line a little to the north of Hamath, conscious 
that it was included ; but, unobservant then of the pre- 
cise Scriptural definition of the entrance into Hamath, 
he drew it regardless of any entrance, or any natural 
border whatever, across a double chain of mountains. 
This obvious error led to a closer examination. And 
now he can plead only the novelty of the topic in ex- 
cuse for this lengthened illustration, for which, if he 
mistake not, a few words may henceforth suffice, with- 
out the hazard of a repetition of the error. 

In the sequel of the volume proof is adduced, from 
its past history and actual condition, of the goodliness 
of the land ; of its natural fertility, not impaired, but 
increased ; and also of the facility with which its fallen 
cities may be raised from their foundation, and forsa- 
ken cities, though not fallen, even cities still existing, 
though without inhabitants, and houses still standing, 
though without man, may be repaired or restored to 
dwell in. 

The land of promise, rightly bearing that title still 
when looked at as it is, appears, indeed, like an oak 
which the storms of winter have stripped of its leaves. 
But in taking up the covepant with Abraham, and 



INTRODUCTION. 



xvii 



Isaac, and Jacob, it is not in that aspect that we would 
view it here ; but rather would we look to what it has 
been, and to the substance that is in it still, in order to 
show what, in accordance with the Abrahamic cove- 
nant, and many precious promises of Scripture, it yet 
shall be, when that substance which is in it shall put 
forth its fullest foliage anew, even richer and more 
beauteous than ever ; and the bare and naked land be 
covered and clothed again, like an oak of Bashan in 
sumuier. 

The desolation of many cities, as illustrative of 
prophecy, might be told in a word ; but the practica- 
bility of their restoration demands a closer inspection. 
Nay, the ruins would all need to be disclosed to view, 
as has been of late partially the case with some, be- 
fore a complete idea could be formed of the amplitude 
of the materials ready for reconstruction. The ruins 
of Syria are not like those of many other lands ; not 
like those of Egypt, for instance, often buried beneath 
the sand ; nor like those of other countries, where 
broken fragments of once connected walls encumber 
the ground, incapable of being built up again. But 
better promises than Israel, or any other nation ever 
yet inherited, have in these pages to be kept ultimate- 
ly in view. And we would here draw from the past, 
or describe the present, to show how, in respect to the 
land, all things are ready, or ripening fast for the com- 
pletion — it may be at no distant day, though other 
judgments yet intervene — of the covenant with faith- 
ful Abraham, to which no curses are annexed ; and 
also how the past and still visible judgments which 
come upon the land may be viewed as pointing to, and 
preparing for, the time when mercy shall rejoice over 
them, and the world, with all its families, blessed in 
the seed of Jacob, be a witness that the God of Israel 
is a covenant-keeping God, who will not suffer his 
faithfulness to fail, but overrules all things for the final 
accomplishment of his word, and for the ultimate man- 
ifestation of his glory. 

B2 



THE LAND OF ISRAEL. 



MY COVENANT WILL I NOT BREAK, NOR ALTER THE THING THAT 
IS GONE OUT OF MY MOVTR.-Psalm Ixxxix., 34. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE COVENANT WITH ABRAHAM RESPECTING THE LAND- 
ITS PERPETUITY. 

SECTION 1. 

The name of " the land of Canaan" is nearly coeval with 
the deluge. And the names of ancient cities, still attached 
to the same localities, serve at once to fix the site of the ter- 
ritory possessed by the Canaanites, when " the nations were 
divided after the flood." Sidon, the father of the Sidonians, 
was the eldest son of Canaan, the grandson of Noah. " The 
border of the Canaanites was from Sidon, as thou comest to 
Gerar unto Gaza,^^* &c. " The families of the Canaanites 
were spread abroad," and they speedily occupied extensive 
regions in Syria. 

The dwelling of the families of Shem, of whom came the 
Hebrew race, was in the east.f Abram dwelt in Ur of the 
Chaldees, beyond the Euphrates. J 

From the time that God blessed Noah, after the deluge, 
there is no record that his voice was heard by man till He 
appeared unto Abram, when he was in Mesopotamia,^ Four 
hundred years subsequent to the establishment of the cove- 
nant with Noah and his seed, the word of the Lord came 
unto the son of Terah, a descendant of Shem, " Get thee out 
of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's 
house, unto a land that I will show thee ; and I will make of 
thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name 
great ; and thou shalt he a Messing : and I loill bless them 
that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee : and in thee 
shall all the families of the earth be blessed. So Abram de- 
parted, as the Lord had spoken unto him. And Abram took 

* gen., X., 19. t Ibid., 30. + Ibid., xv., 7. ^ Acts, vii., 2. 



20 



THE PERPETUITY Of THE COVENANT 



Sarai his wife, and Lot, his brother's son, and all their sub- 
stance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had 
gotten in Haran ; and they went forth to go into the land of 
Canaan ; and into the land of Canaan they came. And 
Abram passed through the land unto the 'plain of Sichem, 
unto the plain of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the 
land. And the Lord appeared unto Abram, and said. Unto 
THY SEED WILL I GIVE THIS LAND I and there builded he an 
altar unto the Lord, who appeared unto him,"* 

A grievous famine prevailing afterward in Canaan, Abram 
went down into Egypt, to sojourn for a season. After his 
return, as on his first entrance into Canaan, the promise was 
confirmed and renewed more amply than before : " And the 
Lord said unto Abram, after Lot was separated from him, 
Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou 
art, northward, and southward, and eastward, and west- 
ward ; for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give 
it, and to thy seed forever. Arise, walk through the land, in 
the length of it and in the breadth of it : for I will give it 
unto thee."t 

Again, after Abram had long sojourned in the land, the 
repeated promises of the Lord assumed the form of a cove- 
nant, confirmed by visible signs, by which, as it were, the 
Lord pledged himself to their fulfilment ; and He set the 
bounds of the destined inheritance of his seed. " The Word 
of the Lord came unto Abram in a vision, saying. Fear not, 
Abram ; I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward. "| 
Already had he shown his faith by his works ; he had left 
his own country at the Divine command, not knowing whith- 
er he was to go, but as the Lord would show him ; and 
when the aged and childless pilgrim was told that his own 
son, and no other, should be his heir, and that his seed 
should be numerous as the stars of heaven, he helieved in. 
the Lord, and He counted it to him for righteousness. A 
Chaldean, dwelling in the midst of idolaters, had been call- 
ed by the Lord, and had left his country, his kindred, and 
his father's house, at his command ; he had gone childless 
for many a year, till hoary hairs were upon him, a wander- 
ing pilgrim in a land of strangers ; and the steward of his 
house was Eliezer of Damascus. Had not the Almighty 
otherwise decreed, his name, in a few short years at the far- 
thest, would have been blotted out from under heaven. But 



* Gea., xii., 1-6. 



t Ibid., xiii., 14, 15, 17. 



t Ibid., XV., 1. 



CONCERNING THE LAND. 



21 



when the Word of the Lord came to him, saying, " This 
shall not be thine heir j but he that shall come forth of thine 
own bowels shall be thine heir," he believed. And when 
" the Lord brought him forth abroad and said, Look now to- 
wards heaven and tell the stars, if thou be able to number 
them," the childless man lifted up his aged head, and, in a 
pure and cloudless atmosphere unknown in gloomy regions, 
he looked upon the untold and numberless stars that thickly 
studded the whole firmament of heaven ; and when the Word 
of the Lord said unto him. So shall thy seed be, he believed 
in the Lord ; and He counted it to him for righteousness. 
And He said unto him, I am the Lord, that brought thee out 
of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it* 
It was enough for Abram that the Lord had spoken. It was 
counted enough by the Lord that Abram believed. And the 
time was come when the Lord made a covenant between 
himself and Abram. 

Believing the promise, and not distrusting the power of 
God, but knowing that all things were possible unto Him, 
" Abram said. Lord God, whereby shall I know that I shall 
inherit it ?" He was commanded to take a heifer, a goat, a 
ram, a turtle dove, and a young pigeon ; and he took them, 
and divided them in the midst, and laid each piece over 
against the other. All that Abram could farther do was 
to drive away the fowls from the carcasses till the going 
down of the sun. Then a great horror of darkness fell 
upon him. " And when the sun went down, and it was dark, 
behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp, that passed 
between those pieces. In the same day the Lord made a 
covenant with Abram, saying. Unto thy seed will I give this 
land, from the River of Egypt unto the great river, the River 
Euphrafes,^^^ &,c. 

Finally, when Abram was ninety years old and nine, a 
year before the birth of Isaac, and when Ishmael was thir- 
teen years old, the covenant was renewed with Abraham, call- 
ed Abram no more, but destined to be, as designated, a " fa- 
ther of many nations." The boundaries of the promised land 
having been fixed by the covenant, the perpetual duration of 
the inheritance, as previously promised, came also specially 
within its bonds : " I will establish my covenant between 
me and thee, and thy seed after thee, in their generations, 
for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy 

* Gen., XT., 1-7. t Ibid., 7-12, 17, 18, &c. 



22 THE PERPETUITY OF THE COVENANT 



seed after thee. And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed 
after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land 
of Canaan, for an everlasting 'possession ; and I will be their 
God."* 

At the same time, circumcision was instituted as a perpet- 
ual token of an everlasting covenant, which it was also call- 
ed : " This is my covenant which ye shall keep, between 
me and you, and thy seed after thee : Every man child 
among you shall be circumcised ; and it shall be a token of 
the covenant betwixt me. and you : He that is born in thy 
house, and he that is bought with thy money, must needs 
be circumcised : and my covenant shall be in your flesh for 
an everlasting covenant. ''"'^ 

After the death of Abraham, and after Esau had sold his 
birthright to Jacob, a famine arose again in Canaan, and Isaac, 
once in his life, purposed to leave the land of promise. And 
once, too, at that very time, the Lord appeared unto him and 
said, " Go not down into Egypt ; dwell in the land which I 
shall tell thee of. Sojourn in this land, and I will be with 
thee, and will bless thee : for unto thee and unto thy seed 
I will give all these countries ; and I will perform the oath 
which I sware unto Abraham thy father, and I will make thy 
seed to multiply as the stars of heaven, and will give unto 
thy seed all these countries ; and in thy seed shall all the na- 
tions of the earth be blessed," &c.}; 

Jacob abode not always, like his father Isaac, in the land 
bf Canaan. His mother Rebekah, alarmed for his life, be- 
cause of the fury of his brother, and his father, fearful lest 
he should take a wife of the daughters of Canaan, charged 
him to go to Padanaram to the house of Bethuel. " God Al- 
mighty bless thee," said Isaac to his departing son, " and give 
thee the blessing of Abraham, to thee, and to thy seed with 
thee ; that thou mayest inherit the land wherein thou art a 
stranger, which God gave unto Abraham. "§ Stranger in the 
lan,d as he was, Jacob left it not without far more than a pater- 
nal and patriarchal blessing. " He went out from Beersheba, 
and went towards Haran :" but he did not rest the first night 
on his journey, nor reach the borders of the land, till the God 
of Abraham and of Isaac gave him to know that He was also 
the God of Jacob. And when stones were his pillow and 
the earth his bed, the destined father of the twelve tribes of 
Israel received the promise that the land should be theirs. 

* Gen., xvii., 7, 8. t Ibid., 9-13. % Ibid., xxvi., 1-4. <i Ibid., xxviii., 4. 



CONCERNING THE LAND. 



23 



" I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of 
Isaac : the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to 
thy seed : And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth ; 
and thou shall spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and 
to the north, and to the south : and in thee and in thy seed 
shall all the families of the earth be blessed. And, behold, 
I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither 
thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land : for I 
loill not leave thee until I have done that which I have spoken 
to thee of.''* 

God did not leave Jacob, but did bring him again into the 
land, and appeared unto him a second time when he came 
out of Padanaram, and blessed him, and said. The land which 
I gave Abraham and Isaac, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed 
after thee will I give the land.^ 

And when Jacob, in extreme old age, took his journey, 
with all that he had, to go down to Egypt to his son Joseph, 
to return no more, as a living man, to Canaan, the Lord at 
the last, as at the first, suffered him not to reach the border 
of the land without a renewal of his promise and reassurance 
of its truth. "And God spake unto Israel in the vision of 
the night, and said, Jacob, Jacob ; and he said, Here am L 
And he said, I am God, the God of thy father ; fear not to 
go down into Egypt ; for I will make thee there a great na- 
tion. I will go down with thee into Egypt ; and I will also 
surely bring thee up ; and Joseph shall put his hand upon 
thine eyes."{ 

Israel, full of faith, before his eyes were closed in death, 
charged all his sons, and made Joseph swear unto him, not 
to bury him in Egypt, but to carry him out from thence, and 
bury him in the field of Machpelah, in the land of Canaan, 
in the burying-place of his fathers :^ and he recounted the 
promise of the Lord : " Behold, I will make thee fruitful and 
multiply thee, and will make of thee a multitude of people ; 
and will give this land to thy seed after thee, for an everlast- 
ing possession''^ 

Joseph also, dying in the faith, "said unto his brethren, 
I die : and God will surely visit you, and bring you out of 
this land unto the land which He sware to Abraham, to Isaac, 
and to Jacob ; and Joseph took an oath of the children of 
Israel, saying, God will surely visit you, and ye shall carry 
up my bones from hence. 

* Gen., xxviii., 13-15. t Ibid., xxxv., 9-12. t Ibid., xlvi., 1-4. 

h Ibid., xlvii., 29. 30 ; xlix,, 29 -32. II Ibid., xlviii., 4. IT Ibid., I., 24, 25. 



24 THE PERPETUITY OF THE COVENANT 



Such is the heaven-chartered right of the seed of Israel 
to the land of Canaan. And such is its confirmation, by the 
clear promises, attested covenant, and repeated oath of the 
Lord God, as recorded in the first book of the Bible. 

In the brief scriptural history of the antediluvian world, 
there is no record that the Lord spake unto man from the 
time that the first-born of the human race became the mur- 
derer of the second, and Cain was cursed from the earth, 
till God said unto Noah, when all flesh had corrupted his 
way upon the earth, " The end of all flesh is come before 
me, for the earth is filled with violence through them, and 
behold, I will destroy them from the earth."* And after 
the sole covenant was made with Noah and his sons, centu- 
ries again passed away, and the voice of the Lord was not 
heard by man till a descendant of Shem, in Ur of the Chal- 
dees, was commanded to leave his country, and go into anoth- 
er and strange land. There is something strikingly peculiar 
in the command here given, as pertaining to the land whith- 
er he was to go, as well as to the person, in commanding 
whom to go thither, the long silence, so very seldom inter- 
rupted since communion with God was lost by sin, was thus 
broken at last by a voice from heaven, the voice of the Lord, 
" Get thee out from thy country, and from thy kindred, and 
from thy father's house, unto a land that I will show thee" 
The Lord who had called him was to show him the land. 
The one was chosen as well as the other. And the least 
observant reader can hardly fail to see, from the mere jux- 
taposition and connected sequence of the preceding passages 
of Scripture, how rapidly, in marvellous contrast with all the 
previous history of fallen man, vision succeeded to vision ; 
and the same Divine promise was ratified and renewed, again 
and again, by a covenant and by an oath, according as Abra- 
ham, Isaac, and Jacob, in whose seed all the families of the 
earth should finally be blessed, entered, or left, or even pur- 
posed to leave, or returned to the land of Canaan. That 
land was thus set apart as the everlasting possession of the 
seed of Israel, as never was any land to any other people. 

The covenant was made with Abraham, and with Isaac, and 
with Jacob. Not all of Abraham's nor of Isaac's seed were 
destined to possess the land ; for both of them had other de- 
scendants, to whom the promise did not pertain, and who 
had no inheritance in Israel. But the covenant, limited to 

* Gen., vi., 12, 13. 



CONCERNING THE LAND. 



25 



the seed of Jacob, and embracing them all, no longer per- 
tained to any single mortal, as to him, but embraced all the 
tribes of Israel, to whom the land was allotted, and among 
whom in after ages it was apportioned. And whenev^er it 
was thus completed, generation after generation passed 
away ; and, for a long season, the voice of the Lord was si- 
lent again. 

But the faith of the patriarchs was not in vain. The chil- 
dren of Israel, in the appointed time, went up into the land 
to which the dead body of Jacob had been carried, and Jo- 
seph did not in vain give commandment respecting his bones, 
which were carried up by Moses and buried by Joshua in 
Canaan. In that land, save the cave of Machpelah, and a 
parcel of a field in Shechem, each a burying-place, the seed 
of Jacob had not a foot of ground, which, by any human 
right, they could call their own. Nor, though these had 
been purchased by their patriarchal fathers, could the pos- 
session of them be claimed by a race of slaves in Egypt. 
Their right — not to a spot or two for a burying-place — but 
to the whole land for an everlasting possession, rested not on 
an agreement with the sons of Helh or the sons of Hamor, 
but on the covenant of the Lord God of their fathers. 

Prescription for forty, or four hundred years, or even, as 
now, for a far longer period, cannot be valid against the word 
of the living God, in whose sight a thousand years are as 
one day, and to whom the earth belongs. It runs not against 
titles, guarantied by human compact, and sanctioned by hu- 
man laws. But there never was a right or title to any in- 
heritance or possession, given not by man, but by God, as 
that with which the seed of Israel was invested over Cana- 
an. " The lot of their inheritance," " the heritage of Jacob," 
was defined, decreed, and confirmed to them by the prom- 
ise, the covenant, and the oath of the Lord of the whole 
earth. That covenant, as they were foretold and forewarned, 
might, as to its operation, be suspended for a season, and 
seem to be annulled forever ; but, however hopeless its ex- 
ecution might at any time appear, it was never repealed, and 
would not always be forgotten. As Abraham, against hope, 
believed in hope, when, bordering on his hundreth year, he 
trusted and knew that the promised blessings would rest on 
the innumerable descendants of his then unborn son, so, 
when generation after generation of the children of Israel 
was held in Egyptian bondage, and the very straw was 

C 



^6 THE PERPETUITY OF THE COVEJ^AN'T 



withheld from them* which was needful to make bricks to 
their masters, they would have believed against hope, or all 
conceivable likelihood that it would ever be realized, in 
thinking that the goodly land of Canaan would be theirs. 
God might have seemed to be the God of any other race 
than of the enslaved and toilworn children of Israel, under 
the rods of Egyptian taskmasters. Yet it was not hid from 
Abraham, but from the word of God he knew assuredly that 
his seed should be a stranger in a land not theirs, wherein 
they should be long afflicted ; but he knew also that they 
should come with great substance into the land of Canaan 
again, though more than four centuries should elapse from 
the time the promise was given ere it should begin to be re- 
ahzed.f 

The Lord, in his appointed time and way, saves, from 
troubles however great or enemies however strong, by many 
or by few. It was when the lives of the children of Israel 
were bitter with hard bondage, and tlie commandment had 
been given by the King of Egypt that every newborn male 
child of the Israelites should be killed, that an infant lying 
in an ark of bulrushes amid the flags by the river's brink 
was raised up to be the deliverer of Israel. After being 
trained in the house of Pharaoh, he fled from his face. A 
stranger in a strange land, keeping the flock of Jethro on 
the farther outskirts of the desert, he saw a bush, like Israel 
then as in after ages, burning with fire and not consumed — 
for the selfsame reason, because the Lord was there. The 
time was come for Jacob's deliverance, when his destruc- 
tion was threatened ; and the voice of the Lord, who is a 
covenant-keeping God, was uttered again. Turning aside 
to see the great sight, Moses heard the voice of the Lord 
calhngto him, " Moses, Moses. And the Lord said» I have 
surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, 
and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters ; 
for I know their sorrows, and am come down to deliver 
them out of the hands of the Egyptians, and to bring them 
!up out of that land, unto a good land and a large, unto a 
land Jlowing with milk and honey ; unto the place of the Ca- 
naanite, and the Hitlite, and the Amorile, and the Ferizzite, 
and the Jebusite. Thus shalt thou say unto the children of 
Israel, I (Jehovah) hath sent me unto you. The Lord 
Ood of your ftithers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, 

* Exod., v., 7. r Gen., xv., 13-18. 



CONCERNING THE LAND. 



2t 



and the God of Jacoh, hatli sent me unto you ; this is my 

NAME FOREVER, AND MY MEMORIAL UNTO ALL GENERA- 
TIONS."* 

The Lord did begin to prove the truth of his covenant by 
putting it into effect against all the resistance of Pharaoh 
and that of all their enemies. 

When the King of Egypt refused to let the people go, 
and yet more grievously oppressed them, one Divine com- 
munication followed after another, more rapidly than ever 
since the days before the fall. The Lord said unto Moses, 
" Now shalt thou see what I will do to Pharaoh : I am the 
Lord. And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto 
Jacob, by the name of God Almighty, but by my name Je- 
hovah was I not known unto them. And I have also estab- 
lished my covenant with them, to give them the land of Ca- 
naan, the land of their pilgrimage, wherein they were stran- 
gers. And I have also heard the groanings of the children 
of Israel, whom the Egyptians keep in bondage ; and I have 
rememhered my covenant. Wherefore say unto the children 
of Israel, I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from 
the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you of their 
bondage ; and I will take you to me for a people, and I will 
be to you a God. And I will bring you into the land, con- 
cerning the which I did swear to give it to Abraham, to Isaac, 
and to Jacoh, and I will give it to you for an heritage : I am 
the Lord."t 

Although, in maintaining the unchangeableness and invi- 
olability of that covenant, the Lord was first known to Isra- 
el by his name Jehovah, the self-existent and ever-living 
God, the Divine right of the seed of Israel to the possession 
of Canaan may now be a startling statement in the ears of 
those who have not perfectly considered, however frequent- 
ly they may have read, the oft-repeated covenant of the 
Lord, and the oath which He sware to Abraham, to Isaac, 
and to Jacob. But if their notions come short of absolute 
incredulity, their wavering faith is stronger than that of 
those whose groanings God heard and remembered his cov- 
enant ; but who, when this very message from the Lord 
was told them, would not, after the first disappointment of 
their hopes, hearken unto Moses for anguish of spirit and 
for cruel bondage.\ 

Abraham was a stranger in the land of Canaan. There 

* Exod., iii., J-15. t Ibid., vi., 1-8. * Ibid., 9. 



28 THE PERPETUITY OF THE COVENANT 



for three generations he and his descendants had sojourned 
as pilgrims. The possession declared to be everlasting had 
not, after the lapse of centuries, been once entered on for a 
single day. In Egypt, long their dwelling-place, the land 
of Goshen, though once held in free tenure from the king, 
had been turned into the house of bondage. Gathering 
stubble in the fields, and beaten for a fault that was not 
theirs,* they looked not like the heirs of a divinely-cove- 
nanted inheritance ; and when their hope was once cast 
down, and their burdens increased because they dared to 
cherish it, their hearts were crushed, and their hope was 
lost, and to the tidings of deliverance they would not listen. 

But though another king had arisen that knew not Joseph, 
and the Egyptian dynasty had been changed, the same un- 
changeable Jehovah, making himself known by that name, 
declared the immutability of his covenant with the seed of 
Jacob. Their cry came up unto God by reason of their bond- 
age, and God looked upon the children of Israel, and had re- 
spect unto them.f And when their oppression was increased 
beyond endurance, and the ordained slaughter of each male 
child threatened the annihilation of their race, their deliv- 
erance was signal and glorious ; and whenever the Vv'ord 
for its ratification came forth from their God, all earthly 
power was tried in vain to prevent or to suspend the exe- 
cution of the covenant. 

Because Pharaoh would not let the people go, miracle 
after miracle brought plague upon plague, till the last hour 
had come in which the children of Israel were to remain in 
Egypt. At midnight the Lord smote the first-born in every 
family of the Egyptians ; and the hardened heart of the 
king being humbled at last, he was constrained to urge them 
to depart, at the very moment when they were equipped for 
their journey.J When, again infatuated to pursue them, 
his horse, and chariots, and horsemen were entombed in the 
Red Sea, while Israel passed over on dry ground, the wa- 
ters being a wall to them on the right hand and on the left,<5> 
the Lord, triumphing gloriously, redeemed the seed of Ja- 
cob with a strong hand, and a stretched-out arm, and with 
great judgments and fury poured forth upon their enemies. 

The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some 
men count slackness. His covenant with Israel could not 
fail. Rather should the Red Sea be a pathway for hundreds 

* Exod., v., 12-17. t lb., ii., 25. X lb., xii., .31 . ^ lb., xiv., 22, 28, 29. 



CONCERNING THE LAND. 



29 



of thousands to pass over dry-shod — rather should manna, as 
from heaven, fall down daily in abundance for them all, and 
the stream flow from the flinty rock — rather should a pillar 
of cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night, guide them on 
their way-— rather should the waters of Jordan fly back be- 
fore the feet of those who bore the ark of the covenant, and 
the walls of Jericho fall down at the blast of the smallest 
horns, than the Lord should not plant his people in the land 
which He had promised to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and 
to Jacob, and to their seed forever. Nay, rather should the 
sun and the moon stand still, as his witnesses in the heaA*"- 
ens, at the commandment of a man who was steadfast in the 
covenant of the Lord, and led the Israelites into Canaan, 
than the word of the Eternal fail in driving out their ene- 
mies before them. 

SECTION 11. 

But God is not a respecter of persons ; and merciful and 
gracious as He is, yet He will by no means clear the guil- 
ty. Known to the Israelites as the God of Abraham, of 
Isaac, and of Jacob — as the Almighty, and as Jehovah — He 
made himself known to them also as the Holy One of Isra- 
el ; and He chose them unto himself for a peculiar and a 
holy people. He entered into a covenant with ihem, ivhen 
He brought them out of the land of Egypt. The law was 
then given them ; and life and death were set before them. 
The words of the covenant — the ten commandments — were 
written on tables of stone by the finger of the Lord ; and 
after the tenour of these loords He made a covenant with Is- 
rael* 

Sin can have no fellowship with God ; He is angry with 
the wicked every day ; and sinners, as such, cannot enter 
into covenant or communion with Him. A sinner, however, 
like all other men, Abraham was ; and even when the Lord 
had made and confirmed his covenant with him, he confess- 
ed that he was but dust and ashes in his sight. f But he 
believed in the Lord, and He counted it to him for righteous- 
ness. His faith was shown by his obedience to the voice 
of the Lord, even till his hand was lifted up to sacrifice his 
beloved son, the very heir of promise. The covenant con- 
cerning the land was made with believing men. They be- 
lieved in a righteousness not their own ; they saw the day 

* Exod., xxiiv., 27. t Gen., xviii., 27. 

C2 



30 



THE PERPETUITY OF THE COVENANT 



of Christ afar off, and were glad ; and the covenant between 
God and them was gracious and everlasting, and bears its 
token in all generations of their race. But, even under the 
Old Testament dispensation, circumcision became as uncir- 
cumcision, and availed nothing, if, with uncircumcised hearts, 
they were not the children o{ faithful Abraham. An Isra- 
elite according to the flesh alone had no right to the inher- 
itance of the land, if faith was wanting. 

Of this their earliest history supplies an obvious illustra- 
tion, a fearful " example of unbelief," in the multitudes that 
were brought out of Egypt, and were led to the very bor- 
ders of the promised land, and were commanded to enter it ; 
but who, fearful of their enemies, and distrusting the power 
and disbelieving the promises of God, " could not enter in 
because of unbelief."* " How long will this people provoke 
me 1 how long will it he ere they believe me? for all the signs 
which I have shown them, said the Lord."f He threaten- 
ed to disinherit them, and in their stead to make of Moses a 
greater and mightier nation than they. But, jealous for the 
glory of the Lord, their magnanimous leader, regardless of 
the promised exaltation of his own house, pleaded fervently 
for Israel, that the name of their God might not be blasphe- 
med by the Egyptians and other nations. " They will say," 
said Moses, " that the Lord was not able to bring this peo- 
ple into the land which He sware unto them, therefore He 
hath slain them in the wilderness." " And the Lord said, 
I have pardoned according to thy word ; but as truly as I 
live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord ; 
but because these men have not hearkened unto my voice, 
surely they shall not see the land which I sware unto their fa- 
thers ; to-morrow turn you, and get you into the wilder- 
7iess."'\. There, according to his word, that unbelieving and 
evil generation fell. And not till all above twenty years 
old, who had come out of Egypt — save Caleb and Joshua, 
who had another spirit in them — had perished there, did Is- 
rael, when another generation had arisen, enter into Ca- 
naan. 

A most striking and instructive illustration is thus pre- 
sented, in the very beginning of their national history, of 
the fact that their unbelief could not make void the prom- 
ises of God to their fathers ; and that their breaking of the 
covenant made with them could not annul the covenant with 



* Heb., iii., 14. 



t Num., xiv., 11, 12. 



t Ibid., 15, 16, 21-25, 



CONCERNING TOE LAND, 31 

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, which the Lord confirmed as 
everlasting, centuries before the law was given by Moses. 
The wiiole nation might have been disinherited^ as threat- 
ened, and slain as one man ; but God, as He declared, would 
have made, even of a single individual left in Israel, a great- 
er and mightier nation, in whom He would fulfil his prom- 
ises. An unbelieving generation did perish in the wilder- 
ness, and yet the Lord, in contradiction of the averment of 
the heathen, did bring his people into the land which He 
sware unto them. Whatever might seem to frustrate the 
covenant with Abraham ; whatever, in the wisdom of this 
world, which is foolishness with God, might seem in human 
view to annul and to annihilate it, by rendering its execu- 
tion apparently impossible ; still, as truly as the Lord liveth 
— and his name Jehovah tells that He is the ever-living 
God — his covenant should stand fast as his very being ; 
and, neither mutilated nor marred, either by the unbelief of 
his people for a season, however long, or by the blasphe- 
mies of the heathen, whatever hard speeches they might utter 
against Him, it would be established at last, in very faith- 
fulness, as at first He had confirmed it bv his oath. Hath 
He said ? hath He sworn ? and shall He not do it? Assu- 
redly the promises to the fathers shall be fulfilled, and the 
everlasting possession of the land by the seed of Abraham 
shall be conjoined with the simultaneously promised bless- 
ing to all the families of the earth. For then, and not till 
then, in that glorious consummation alone, shall these words 
be true, which, swearing by himself, as He could not swear 
hy a greater, the Lord spake at the very time when even 
Moses feared that his name would be blasphemed, and his 
power derided, if his people should perish in the wilderness : 

"As TRULY AS I LIVE, ALL THE EARTH SHALL BE FILLED 

WITH THE GLORY OF THE LoRD. To-morrow, tum ye, and 
get ye into the wilderness.''' Whatever the nations might say, 
or whatever the Israelites might do, the Lord himself would 
see to the execution of his covenant in all its parts ; into 
his own hand He had taken it; and it rested with Him, 
and with Him alone, that the unbelief of the Jews and the 
ungodliness of the nations should finally everywhere cease ; 
and that not even one word should fall from the covenant 
any more than from the lavi^, till all the earth should be fill- 
ed with his glory, and see and acknowledge that the Holy 
One of Israel is the Lord, with whom all things are possi* 



32 



THE PERPETUITY OF THE COVENANT 



ble. The whole earth itself is the witness to this hour that 
the time is not yet : none, but worse than Egyptian blas- 
phemers, can say that it never shall be, for the promise is 
as true as the Lord liveth. 

Another illustration here arises, plain and palpable in the 
sight of all believers in Moses, and in the history of which 
he was the sacred penman ; a truth which is also confirm- 
ed as clearly at every step in all the progress of Israelitish 
history, as the apostle hath declared it — the law makes no- 
thing perfect."* Luminous as this is in the eye of faith, it 
is a hard saying to those sinners of the Gentiles, who, like 
the Jews in many generations, bearing everywhere the cur- 
ses of that covenant, go about to establish a righteousness 
of their own. The fact stands out most prominently in 
Jewish history, and forms its commencement. In the very 
first year after the law was given, the children of Israel, re- 
leased from bondage and first united as a people, could not, 
notwithstanding the promise, enter into Canaan. The 
whole nation had broken it. From the sin of unbelief it 
could not save them. And the God of their fathers, at the 
very time his promises would otherwise have been fulfilled, 
threatened to smite them with pestilence, and to disinherit 
them ; and Moses, by whom the law was given, prayed that 
the whole nation might not be killed as one man, because 
of their transgressions and unfaithfulness in the covenant 
made under the law. They were commanded back from 
the borders of Canaan to die in the wilderness. But while 
the law condemned them, the covenant with their fathers 
stood ; and therefore, as in ages after, Israel was not wholly 
consumed. 

Unlike to that unconditional covenant which God made 
with Abraham, and which He will doubtless fulfil to the 
praise of the glory of his grace, the covenant which He 
made, and repeatedly renewed with the Israelites under the 
law, was coupled with the most express conditions, on the 
breach of which fearful judgments were denounced. And 
the blessings and the curses, which pertained to this cove- 
nant, according to their obedience or disobedience, were set 
before them, and read in the hearing of all the people, both 
before and after they entered the land promised to their 
fathers. 

" This day," said Moses, " the Lord thy God hath com- 

* Heb., vii., 19. 



CONCEKNING THE LAND. 



33 



manded thee to do these statutes and judgments ; thou shalt 
therefore keep and do them with all thy heart and all thy 
soul. Thou hast avouched the Lord to be thy God, and to 
walk in his ways, and to keep his statutes, and his com- 
mandments, and his judgments, and to hearken to his voice ; 
and the Lord hath avouched thee this day to be his pe- 
culiar people, as He hath promised thee, and that thou 
shouldst keep all his commandments ; and to make thee high 
above all nations which He hath made, in praise, and in 
name, and in honour ; if that thou mayest be a holy people 
unto the Lord thy God, as He hath spoken."* Ye stand 
all of you this day before the Lord your God, your captains 
of your tribes, your elders, and your officers, with all the 
men of Israel, that thou shouldst enter into covenant wilh 
the Lord thy God, and v:iih his oath which the Lord thy God 
malceth with thee this day, that He may establish thee to-day 
for a people unto himself, and that He may be unto thee a 
God, as He hath said unto thee, and as He hath sworn unto 
thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob ; neither 
with you only do I make this covenant and this oath, but 
with him that standeth before the Lord thy God, and also 
with him that is not here with us this day, lest there be 
among you man, or woman, or family, or tribe whose heart 
turneth away this day from the Lord our God, &c. The 
Lord will not spare him, but then the anger of the Lord and 
his jealousy shall smoke against that man, and all the cur- 
ses that are written in this book shall lie upon him, and the 
Lord shall blot out his name from under heaven, and the 
Lord shall separate him unto evil out of all the tribes of Is- 
rael, according to all the curses thai are written in this look 
of the laio ; so that the generations to come of your children 
that shall rise up after you, and the stranger that shall come 
from a far land, shall say, when they see the plagues of 
that land, and the sickness that the Lord hath laid upon it, 
Wherefore hath the Lord done this unto this land ? what 
meaneth the heat of this great anser ? Then men shall 
say, Because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord 
God of their fathers, lohich He made with them whm He 
brought them forth out of the land of Egypt : and the anger 
of the Lord was kindled against this land to bring upon it 
all the curses that are written in this book.f 

Such is the tenour of the covenant made with the Israel- 



* Deut., xxvii., 16-19. 



t Ibid., xxix., 10-25. 



34 



THE fEKPETUlTY OF THE COVENANT 



iites wlien they came out of Egypt, and before tliey entered into 
Canaan. After their entrance into the promised land, it was 
renewed by Joshua, and again before his death ; and in his 
last words he said unto the people, " Ye are witnesses 
against yourselves that ye have chosen the Lord to serve 
Him ; and they said, We are witnesses : the Lord our God 
will we serve, and his voice will we obey. So Joshua 
made a covenant with the people that day."* These were 
all but several renewals of the covenant which the Lord 
made with Israel on the day when He brought them out of 
Egypt, and when the law was given by Moses. 

Greatly does this covenant differ, as it is thus manifestly 
distinct, from that made by the Lord with Abraham, and 
with Lsaac, and with Jacob. That covenant was full of 
promises and blessings alone, the final and full completion 
of which the Lord took into his own hands, and ratified by 
his own oath; this had conditions annexed to it, the breach 
of which, on the part of the children of Israel, would bring 
on them all the curses of the covenant. The one was made 
with men of faith, who were thus accounted righteous before 
the Lord ; the other was made after the tenour of the words 
of the law, by which no sinful mortal can be justified in his 
sight. The one gave unreservedly to the seed of Jacob a 
large and goodly land for an everlasting possession ; the oth- 
er conveyed only a conditional tenure of the land, and point- 
ed, as with the finger of the Lord, to the tribes of Israel root- 
ed out of their inheritance, and scattered among all the na- 
tions of the earth, while the curses of a broken covenant 
also rested on their blasted heritage. The first conferred 
on the seed of Jacob the blessed privilege of being a bless- 
ing to all the families of the earth; the other denounced 
against transgressors the blotting out of their name from un- 
der heaven. 

If a distinction be not made between one covenant, rest- 
ing securely on the faithfulness of God, and another sus- 
pended tremblingly on the obedience of man, it is not to be 
wondered at that doubts should be cast by thousands on the 
restoration of Israel, and the fulfilment of the promises of 
God to the fathers. But if things that so essentially differ 
be distinguished, and the one covenant be not confounded 
with the other, that concerning which God lifted up his 
hand to Abraham, and to Isaac, and to Jacob, will be seen 

* Joshua, xxiv., 22, &c, 



CONCERNING THE LAND. 



35 



to stand entire as at the beginning in all its indinninishable 
force, and to shine forth as a lamp lighted from heaven in 
all its bright, unalterable truth, even as the other has been 
confirmed in the desolation of Judea, and the dispersion of 
the Jews to this day. If the first had been like unto the 
second, with such conditions and " curses" annexed to it, 
the siofns of its confirmation miffht have been, not a smoking 
furnace, but a consuming fire ; not a burning lamp, but a 
flickering gleam. 

If the Israelites had been steadfast in the covenant which 
the Lord made with them when He brought ihem out of the 
land of Egypt, then the covenant would have been fulfilled 
to them, in ages past, which He made with the faithful pa- 
triarchs when they were wanderers in Canaan. But, faith- 
less as they were, another, a new, and an everlasting cove- 
nant has yet to be entered into with them ; and under it 
alone, and not under a broken covenant and a broken law, 
can they ever retain, though they may regain, possession 
of their fatherland, or ever inherit it in the full extent, as 
given to Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and to their seed 
forever. Not a jot or tittle has fallen or can fall from the 
law, as the Lord has shown, and will yet show, by aven- 
ging the quarrel of his covenant, which He made with the 
Israelites when He brought them out of the land of Egypt; 
and not a jot or tittle can fail of the better covenant, con- 
firmed as everlasting, and which can never be annulled. 

Most clearly does Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, or, 
rather, the Spirit of truth by which he speaks, distinguish 
between the covenant made with Abraham and that which 
the Lord made with the Israelites under the law. 

In addressing " the foolish Galatians" concerning one of 
the covenanted promises to Abraham, he thus speaks, in 
reason as in faith : " This I say, that the covenant which 
was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law which was 
four hundred and thirty years after, cannot annul, that it 
should make the promise of none effect. For if the inher- 
itance be of the law, it is no more of promise : but God 
gave it to Abraham by promise.^^* 

The same distinction is maintained by all the prophets. 
And throughout the history of the Israelites of old, whether 
prophetic or actual, even while the curses of the covenant 
which the Lord made with them when He brought them 

* Gal., iii., 37, 18. 



36 



THE PERPETUITY OF THE COVENANT 



out of Egypt, and which they broke, fell most heavily upon 
them, the immutability of the promises to Abraham were 
ever declared anew. And express provision was made by 
the Lord, as declared in his word, for the perpetuity of that 
covenant in the fulness of its blessing, however distant the 
time of its completion. 

Heaven and earth were called to witness against the 
children of Israel, that if they did evil in his sight, they 
would utterly perish from off the land which He had given 
them ; and the Lord would scatter them among all nations, 
even among all people, from the one end of the earth unto 
the other. But, notwithstanding this, however much they 
should denude themselves of all right, on their part, to the 
possession of the land, and exclude themselves, by their 
sins and their impenitence, from the covenanted blessings of 
their fathers' God, and therefore certainly bring upon their 
own heads, in all their fulness and in all their terribleness, 
age after age, in every country under heaven, all the judg- 
ments denounced against them, such as the heathen had not 
known, even all the curses of the covenant ; whatever might 
be the degree of their iniquity, or the duration of their mis- 
eries, while their multiplied transgressions should meet with 
sevenfold punishments ; however severely the Lord would 
punish them, and however long his hand might be stretched 
out against them, till his anger should be turned away, yet 
He would not abhor them to destroy them utterly as a peo- 
ple ; and no sin of theirs could ever annul the covenant 
concerning which He had lifted up his hand to their fathers. 
They might forget it, but the Lord would remember it still. 
Scattered as they should be among all people from the one 
end of the earth unto the other, and set for evil and not for 
good, as the eyes of the Lord should be everywhere upon 
them during all the ages of their unfaithfulness and impen- 
itence, yet hath the Lord never said to any of the seed of 
Jacob, Seek ye m}' face in vain. And long prior in time 
as the promises to the fathers were, before the giving of the 
law, so, when all the curses of their own broken covenant 
shall have passed over them, that with Abraham should be 
remembered, and remain the everlasting covenant of un- 
changeable Jehovah. Ere, in his faithfulness, He first 
planted them in Canaan, and warned them that if they kept 
not the covenant whicli He made with them then, they 
gljould p,ot only ceaae to pqg^ess the land of tlieir inherit- 



CONCERNING THE LAND. 



37 



ance, but seek in vain, throughout all the earth, a place 
whereon the sole of their feet could find rest — these were 
still the words of the same God who had called Abraham 
from Ur of the Chaldees. 

" If they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of 
their fathers, with their trespass which they trespassed 
against me, and also that they have walked contrary to me, 
and that I also have walked contrary to them, and have 
brought them into the land of their enemies : if then their 
uncircumcised hearts be humbled, and they then accept of 
the punishment of their iniquity, then will I remember my 
covenant icith Jacobs and also my covenant with Israel, and 
also my covenant with Abraham will I remember, and I will 
remember the land. The land also shall be left of them, and 
shall enjoy her Sabbaths (rest), Vv'hile she lieth desolate 
without them ; and they shall accept of the punishment of 
their iniquity, because, even because they despised my 
judgments, and because their soul abhorred my statutes. 
And yet for all that, when they be in the land of their ene- 
mies I will not cast them away, neither will I abhor them 
to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them, 
for I am the Lord their God. But I will for their sakes re- 
member the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brou«;ht 
forth out of the land of Egypt, in the sight of the heathen, 
that I might be their God : I am the Lord."* " When all 
these things are come upon you, even in the latter days, if 
thou turn to the Lord thy God, and shall be obedient to his 
voice (for the Lord thy God is a merciful God), He will 
not forsake thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the cove- 
nant of thy fathers which He sware unto ihon.^^i 

" And it shall come to pass, when all these things are 
come upon thee, the blessing and the curse which 1 have 
set before thee, and thou shalt call them to mind among all 
the nations whither the Lord thy God hath driven thee, and 
shalt return unto the Lord thy God, and shalt obey his voice 
according to all that I command thee this day, thou and thy 
children, with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, that then 
the Lord thy God will turn thy captivity, and have com- 
passion upon thee, and will return and gather thee from all 
nations whither the Lord thy God hath scattered thee. If 
any of thine be driven out into the outmost parts of heaven, 
from thence will the Lord thy God gather thee, and from 

* J,?vit. *ivi., 40-45, t Peut., iv,, 30, 31. 



38 THE PEIli'ETUITY OY THE COVENANT 

thence will He fetch thee : and the Lord thy God will hring 
thee into the land which thy fathers 'possessed, and thou shall 
possess it; and He %cill do thee good, and multiply thee above 
thy fathers. And the Lord thy God will circumcise thy 
heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God 
with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest 
live. And the Lord thy God will put all these curses upon 
thine enemies, and on them that hate thee, which persecu- 
ted thee. And thou shalt return and obey the voice of the 
Lord, and do all his commandments which I command thee 
this day. And the Lord thy God shall make thee plenteous 
in every work of thy hand, and in the fruit of thy land for 
good ; for the Lord will again rejoice over thee for good, as 
He rejoiced over thy fathers — if thou shalt hearken to his 
voice."* " I call heaven and earth to record against thee 
this day, that I have set before yon life and death, blessing 
and cursing; therefore choose life, that thou mayest dv.'ell 
in the land which the Lord sware unto thy fathers, to 
Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give ihem.''''f 

The covenant of God with the fathers concerning the land 

O 

was thus to stand forever unrepealed, and the promises to 
them would survive all the curses of that covenant which 
was made with the Israelites when they came out of Egypt. 
Scattered as they have been unto the uttermost jjarts of the 
earth, and come upon them as the curses of the covenant 
have — resting on them till they return unto their God, and 
upon their land till they be brought back to it — yet for all 
that, the covenant of the Lord is as fresh in his remembrance 
as when He first brought their ancestors out of the land of 
Egypt. 

But, now as then, the very promises annexed to a covenant 
made under the law, in conformity with the better and prior 
covenant, necessarily and expressly involve the condition of 
perfect obedience, which, were it but for them alone, could 
never be fulfilled. And if the first covenant with the Isra- 
elites had been the last, it would not have been for man or 
angel to tell how the holy law of the Lord could have been 
vindicated, and the oath of the Lord have been performed. 

The law does indeed seem to interpose a barrier to the 
completion of the promise. Exacting just vengeance on a 
faithless race, it drove them from the borders of the land 
when first they approached it. When they entered Canaan, 

* Deut., XXX., 1-10. t Ibid., ver. 19, 20, 



CONCEENING THE LAND. 



39 



it soon stayed their progress, and kept many an enemy within 
their borders, to harass them in every age. With sevenfold 
severity it inflicted punishment after punishment, and brought, 
at last, in guardianship of the covenant made under it, as the 
avenger of its quarrel, the mightiest nation of the earth to 
root out the last remnant of Israel from the land of their in- 
heritance, tvith wrath, and anger, and great indignation,^ 
and with all the unequalled miseries of the siege, and sack, 
and destruction of Jerusalem. 

But God did not call Abraham, and make Jacob faithful, 
and then promise by an oath to believing men that He gave 
the land of Canaan to be the everlasting inheritance of their 
seed, in order to keep them forever under that legal cove- 
nant by which they could claim and keep the land only in 
virtue of a righteousness of their own. The spirit of the 
Pharisees has not yet altogether departed from Israel. The 
traditions of men have more weight with many besides them 
than the testimony of God. But we cannot pander to such 
a spirit by closing the proof of the restoration of Israel's in- 
heritance, in terms of that covenant which was coeval with 
the law. Rather, while looking to it, would we say with 
Joshua, even when the most faithful generation ever in Is- 
rael heard him, " Ye cannot serve the Lord : for He is a 
holy God ; He is a jealous God ; He will not forgive your 
transgressions and your sins. If ye forsake the Lord, and 
serve strange gods, then He will turn and do you hurt, and 
consume you, after that He hath done you good."t 

The Mosaic covenant did indeed point to, without provi- 
ding for, the time when its curses would be no more, but all 
the promises should survive them in blissful completion. 

SECTION III. 

For the full understanding of the promises that guaran- 
ty the everlasting possession of their inheritance to the 
seed of Israel, not only many things that differ be distin- 
guished, and the oath to Abraham be kept clear of the 
curses of another covenant, which unbelieving men, not the 
children ofyai7/?/w/ Abraham, have brought upon themselves 
age after age, but the mutual relations of things that assimi- 
late and are destined to co-operate in the one glorious con- 
summation may be severally marked. The means are here 
prepared whereby the crooked may be made straight, and 
the rough places plain. 

* Peut., xxix., 28. t Joshua, xxir., 19 20, 



40 THE PEKPETUITY OF THE COVENANT 



Not two merely, but four covenants of the Lord are men- 
tioned in Scripture, which have an important or essential 
bearing on the completion of the promises to Abraham con- 
cerning the land, as well as the promised blessing to all the 
families of the earth in his seed. Some allusion to them all 
may be needful here, before adducing the farther testimony 
of the Spirit, as recorded by David and the succeeding 
prophets, concerning the perpetuity of the territorial inherit- 
ance of the seed of Israel. 

These are, 1. The covenant with Abraham, and with 
Isaac, and with Jacob, which is one and the same, repeat- 
ed and confirmed successively to them. 2. The covenant 
of the Lord with the Israelites, on the day in which He 
brought them out of the land of Egypt. To these, already 
noticed, are added, 3^ The covenant with David, respecting 
the establishment of his house and of his throne forever ; 
and, 4. The new and everlasting covenant which the Lord 
will make, in the latter days, with the house of Israel and 
with the house of Judah. 

Each word, as well as each covenant of the living God, 
is a law — an irresistible power, which must fulfil the pur- 
pose for which He sent it. Like the laws which He has 
given to physical nature, and which govern it all, and exist 
in perfect harmony, as manifested in the movements of the 
orbs of heaven, which all obey his voice, so these covenants 
of God with children of men, in their combined efficacy, 
under the sovereignty of his grace as of his power, have 
their decreed purpose to fulfil, in finally evolving an analo- 
gous harmony in the moral world here below, when Israel 
shall be saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation, and 
the will of the Lord he done on earth as it is in heaven. 

Indiscriminately commingled, these covenants, in the 
dimness of human apprehension, without regarding the dis- 
tinctness of the Divine testimony, have sometimes been 
considered rather as conflicting elements that jar against 
each other when brought into contact, than conspiring 
causes whose ultimate result is the salvation of Israel and 
the glory of Israel's God. And when viewed apart, or 
looked at singly, not only has not due weight been assigned 
to each word of each covenant, but, as if commentators had 
been handling the Koran rather than the Bible the latter 
has been made to explain or to absorb the former, and the 
ingenuity of Christians has been exercised in attempting to 



CONCERNING THE LAND. 



41 



accomplish what the unbelief of the Jews could not effect, 
and to make void the promises of God. 

The blessed consummation which it is designed to se- 
cure would not indeed be seen, were the covenant of God 
with Abraham limited to the everlasting possession by any 
race of mortals of any land on earth. But jointly with the 
completion of the promise concerning the land to Israel is 
that of the extension of blessincjs in the selfsame covenant 
to all the families of i/ie earth; and instead of these being 
repulsive elements, none in nature can have a closer affinity 
than those must ultimately be seen to bear to each other, 
which are thus joined together in the covenant concerning 
which the God of nature and of nations, of heaven and of 
earth, has lifted up his hand, and sworn to as everlasting. 
And in Christian faith it may be asked. What shall the re- 
ceiving of them be but life from the dead ? 

The next chapter will form a more appropriate place for 
showing that the Abrahamic covenant concerning the land 
has never yet been fully completed, even in regard to the 
extent of the promised possession. How far it should have 
been fulfilled, or how long it should have borne even a ves- 
tige of actual fulfilment among the Israelites under the law, 
depended on the observance or the breach of the special 
covenant which God had made with them. It had no 
clause bearing a blessing to all nations ; nor was it de- 
clared to be everlasting. But, on the contrary, its curses, 
which assigned to all transgressors their merited doom, 
were sufficient for the extermination of any race of mortals, 
or of all nations upon earth. It ever cried for blood, and 
wrought death and destruction, even as it exacted perfect 
obedience ; and said, Cursed is every one that continueth 
not in all things that are written in the book of the law to 
do them.* " As many as are of the works of the law are 
under the curse. "f And looking only to it, and to its curses 
resting visibly both on the Jews and on their land, the 
promise might well seem to be annulled, except on condi- 
tions sinful mortals could not fulfil, and the hope of Israe^. 
to be cut off forever. 

But, according to the testimony of the Old 1 estament 
and the doctrine of the New, which are perfectly biccordant 
in all things, that covenant made with the Israelites in the 
day when the Lord brought them out of the land of Egypt 

* Deut., xxvii., 26. Jer., xi., 3. t Galat., iii., 10, 

D 2 



42 



THE PERPETUITY OP THE COVENANT 



was not, with its curses, to stand forever, but has to be su- 
perseded by a new and everlasting covenant made with the 
same people. The law was not to be destroyed, but to be 
fulfilled, and to be transferred from tables of stone to the 
fleshy tablets of the heart, and to be written there by the 
same finger of the Lord. 

The Apostle Paul maintains the immutaliliiy of the cove- 
nant confirmed by an oath to Abraham, centuries before the 
law was given by Moses, by which, therefore, it could not 
he annulled.'^ He speaks as explicitly, quoting the testi- 
mony of the Spirit as recorded by Jeremiah, of the ceasing 
of the covenant made under the law, as finally superseded 
by another. " If the first covenant (with the Israelites) 
had been faultless, then should no place have been sought 
for the second. But, finding fault with them, He saiih. Be- 
hold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a 
new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house 
of Judah. Not according to the covenant that I made with 
their fathers in the day luhen I took them by the hand to lead 
them out of the land of Egypt, because they continued not 
in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord. 
For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of 
Israel : After these days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws 
into their minds, and write them in their hearts ; and I will 
be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people ; and 
they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every 
man his brother, saying, Know the Lord : for they shall all 
know me, from the least to the greatest. For I will be 
merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their 
iniquities will I remember no more. In that He saith a 
new covenant. He hath made the first old, now that which 
decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away."f 

Amply did the Lord provide for the accomplishment of 
his promises to the fathers. Though the " curses of that 
covenant" which He made with their seed have driven both 
Israelites and Jews, long distinct from each other, from the 
land of their inheritance, He will make a new and everlast- 
ing covenant of mercy and peace with the house of Israel 
and with the house of Judah. Bearing the two tables of the 
law, the ten commandments, written on stone, their hearts 
failed them for fear at the sight of their enemies, and even 
at the tidings of their strength. The curses of their broken 

Gal., iii., 17. t Heb., viii., 7-13, Jer,, xxxi,, 31, &c, 



CONCERNING THE LAND. 



43 



covenant followed them in every age, rooted them out of 
their own land, and have everywhere pursued and overtaken 
them, and have been upon them for a sign and for a wonder 
for many generations in every country under heaven. But 
after these days, when they shall bear in their hearts the 
law of their God according to his own everlasting covenant 
of mercy and of peace, and when they all shall know Him 
from the least unto the greatest, and He will be merciful unto 
their unrighteousness, and remember their sins and iniqui- 
ties no more, then the curses of the old covenant, itself van- 
ished away, shall no longer be a barrier against their en- 
trance, nor a hinderance to the full possession and final re- 
tention of the land ; nor shall they in any way interpose, as 
heretofore, to retard the full performance of the oath which 
the Lord sware to Abraham, to give the land of Canaan to 
his seed for an everlasting possession. Surely the promi- 
ses made to the believing fathers shall be fulfilled to their 
believing children, even as truly as the Lord liveth. The 
days of their mourning shall be ended. Thy people also 
shall be all righteous ; they shall inherit the land forever * 

The Israelites continued not in the frst covenant ichich 
the Lord made with them : therefore are they wanderers 
throughout the world, who have nowhere found a place on 
which the sole of their foot could rest — a people without a 
country ; even as their own land, as subsequently to be 
shown, is in a great measure a country without a people. 
The one and the other have been smitten with a curse. 
But let that curse be taken away — let the Lord remember 
the people and remember the land, and there shall be no more 
scattering nor wandering, no more desolation, no more sep- 
aration between Zion and her children. Israel has ruined 
himself; but in the Lord his help is to be found, even plen- 
teous redemption. The broken fragments of the tables of 
the law were not gathered up and cemented together, but 
new tables were made, on which the law was written, at 
the command of the Lord, by the hand of Moses. And a 
broken covenant is not renewed, but a new and everlasting 
covenant is established upon better promises, and appointed 
by the Lord in the hand of a Mediator. 

Such is the connexion between the covenant with Abra- 
ham and the new and everlasting covenant which the Lord 
will make with the house of Israel, that the words of Jere- 

* Isaiah, U,, 30, 31. 



44 THE PERPETUITY OF THE COVENANT 



miah, quoted by Paul, in which it is so explicitly announced, 
are ushered in by the declaration of the Lord himself, that 
He will bring again their captivity; and that, like as He 
watched over them to pluck up and to break down, and to 
throw down, and to destroy, and to afflict, so will He watch 
over them to build and to plant.* And the words which 
immediately follow the description of the nature of the new 
covenant are, " Thus saith the Lord, which giveth the sun 
for a light by day, and the ordinance of the moon and of the 
stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea w^hen the 
waves thereof roar — the Lord of Hosts is his name. If 
those ordinances depart from before me, saith the Lord, then 
the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before 
nie forever. Thus saith the Lord, If heaven above can be 
measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out be- 
neath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they 
have done, saith the Lord. Behold, the days come, saith 
the Lord, that the city shall be built to the Lord ; and the 
measuring line shall go over against it ; and it shall not be 
plucked up nor thrown down any more forever."! Such 
shall be the issue of the establishment of the new covenant 
with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. 

The first foundation of it is, indeed, the first promise to 
sinful man : the seed of the woman shall bruise the head 
of the serpent. The promise assumed a more definite form 
when Abraham, at the command of the Lord, had gone to 
Canaan ; and again still more expressly when David had 
taken the stronghold of Zion. The covenant with Abraham 
secured ultimately, though not immediately, a special boon 
to a peculiar people, and the blessing of redemption to all 
the families of the earth. Justice interposed so soon as, 
under the law, the march was begun from the house of 
bondage to the land of promise. But when David was 
called from the sheepfold to the throne, and when he who, 
while a stripling, had gone forth in faith against Goliath, 
was seated there, a covenant was made with him, of which 
the character is mercy, and by which the faithfulness of 
God is made known and established to all generations, and 
a horn of salvation was raised up in his house for Jew and 
Gentile. 

" I will sing," says the royal and inspired Psalmist, " of 
the mercies of the Lord forever : with my mouth will I 

* Jer., xxxi., 23, 28. t Ibid., xxxi., 35-40. 



CONCERNING THE LAND. 



45 



make known thy faithfulness to all generations. For I 
have said, mercy shall be built up forever : thy faithfulness 
shalt thou establish in the very heavens. I have made a 
covenant with my chosen, I have sworn unto David my 
servant, Thy seed will I establish forever, and build up thy 
throne to all generations.* Then thou spakest in vision to 
thy holy One, and saidst, I have laid help upon one that is 
mighty ; I have exalted one chosen out of the people. I 
have found David my servant ; with my holy oil have I 
anointed him — with whom my hand shall be established. 
My faithfulness and my mercy shall be with him ; and in 
my name shall his horn be exalted. Also, I will make 
him my first-born, higher than the kings of the earth. My 
mercy will I keep for him for evermore, and ?ny covenant 
shall standfast loith hini. His seed also will I make to en- 
dure forever, and his throne as the days of heaven. I will 
not suffer my faithfulness to fail. My covenant will I not 
break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips. Once 
have I sworn by my holiness that I will not lie unto David. 
His seed shall endure forever, and his throne as the sun 
before me."t 

In virtue of this covenant, the evangelical prophet pro- 
claims the free Gospel call to all the ends of the earth, 
which shall finally see the salvation of the Lord. " Ho, 
every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that 
hath no money ; come ye, buy and eat ; yea, come, buy 
wine and milk without money and without price : incline 
your ear, and come unto me ; hear, and your soul shall live ; 
and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the 
sure mercies of David,^'^ &;c. 

In denouncing on Israel, because of unfaithfulness, the 
curses of the covenant under the law, the same prophet said, 
The Lord sent a word into Jacob, and it hath lighted upon 
Israel. § And Moses, by whom that covenant was given, 
declared, that if the children of Israel would repent and re- 
turn unto the Lord, and love him with all their hearts, the 
Lord would take these curses from them and put them upon 
their enemies. || But it may be feared that while the Gen- 
tiles, professing the faith of the Gospel, have accounted the 
sure mercies of David theirs, they have often left nothing 
but " the curses" as the appointed portion of the people to 



* Ps. Ixxxix., 1-4. 
^ Isa., ix., 8. 



t lb., 19,20, 24-36. 
I! Deut,, XXX., 7. 



t Isa., Iv., 1-3. 



46 



THE PERrETUITY OF THE COVENANT 



whose fathers the promises were given. Or if, as cannot 
be denied, it be admitted, that were the door at which the 
Son of David now stands and knocks, opened by any maUj 
whether Jew or Gentile, who hears his voice, He will come 
in to him,* yet there may be, in the minds of many, a linger- 
ing apprehension, if not a positive belief, that the Jews have 
long been shut out from the covenanted promises of the 
God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, as in any way pe- 
culiar to their seed, or pertaining to the land of their inher- 
itance. 

Such an opinion derives a seeming sanction from the 
high attributes with which it seems to clothe the everlasting 
covenant of grace and mercy by a Redeemer, and forbids, 
as it were, the overshadowing of " the glory of the latter 
days" by any merely territorial allotment to any peculiar 
people, when the same great salvation, in all the fulness of 
the Gospel, shall extend alike to all. 

That glory is not to be defined, which since the begin- 
ning of the world men have not heard, neither perceived 
with the ear, neither hath the eye seen, but the Lord alone 
— even the glory which He hath prepared for him that wait- 
ed for Him.f But these words, which set forth that glory 
as indescribable, because inconceivable, follow the prayer 
of the prophet, and may be regarded as its answer : " Re- 
turn, for thy servanCs sake, the tribes of thine inheritance. 
The people of thy holiness have possessed it for a little 
while : our adversaries have trodden down thy sanctuary. 
We are thine : thou never barest rule over them ; they were 
not called by thy name. Oh that thou wouldst rend the 
heavens, that thou wouldst come down,":jl &c. 

True it is that we now see through a glass darkly, but 
then face to face. It is well to cast down high imagina- 
tions, and not vainly seek to be wise above what is written. 
But it is also well to give heed to the sure word of prophecy : 
and it is written. Shake thyself from the dust : arise, and 
sit down, O Jerusalem : loose thyself from the bands of thy 
neck, O captive daughter of Zion. The watchmen shall 
lift up the voice ; with the voice together shall they sing ; 
for they shall see eye to eye, when the Lord shall bring 
AGAIN ZiON. Break forth into joy, sing together, ye waste 
places of Jerusalem ; for the Lord hath comforted his peo- 
ple, for He hath redeemed Jerusalem. The Lord hath 

* Rev., iii., 20. 1 Isa., Ixiv., 4. t Isa., Ixiii., 17-19 ; Ixiv., 1. 



CONCERNING THE LANt). 



47 



made bare bis boly arm in the sight of all nations ; and all 
the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of the Lord.* 

The introduction of the Gospel dispensation, and the 
adoption of Gentiles into the household of faith (of others 
than those who have trodden down the sanctuary), the scat- 
tering of the Jews among all nations, their long-continued 
impenitence, and seeming excision forever, have often led 
Christians to forget not only the sure word of prophecy, 
but also the testimony of an apostle, Tliat God hath not cast 
away Israel, that they are beloved for the father^ s sake, and 
that the gfts and calling of God are without repenta7ice, or 
change of purpose. f 

There is no arguing against facts ; there is no arguing 
against texts, which declare the will and purpose of Jeho- 
vah, and sometimes even his covenant and his oath. The 
tenour of these we have already seen. But, were it possi- 
ble, assurance becomes doubly sure when we look at such 
objections in the light of Scripture, as it still more fully re- 
veals this very thing, and shows that the covenant with Da- 
vid, and the new and everlasting covenant with Israel con- 
joined, are the very completion of the covenant, the very 
confirmation, in fact, of the oath which the Lord sware to 
Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, that He would give the 
promised land to be their everlasting possession, and also, 
simultaneously realized as recorded, that in their seed all 
the families of the earth shall be blessed. The restoration 
and redemption of Israel are often associated in vScripture, 
as originally in the covenant, with the salvation of the world. 

These two things which God hath joined together, and 
over both of which alike He has lifted up his hand, ought 
not to be put asunder by man ; and are not to be separated 
by any words that can come from human lips. They are, 
we believe, equally true ; and in their harmony, when all 
nations shall hear the joyful sound, and see the glorious 
sight, the restoration of the moral harmony of this world is 
dependant. 

There is no room here for any jealousy for the honour of 
the Gospel ; rather is it here that the headstone shall be 
brought forth with shoutings, Grace, Grace unto it.X The 
restoration of Israel stands on the promise of God, and is 
not to be achieved through the merit of man. And the Gos- 
pel was preached at the time when that promise was given. 

* Isa., lii., 1, 8-10. t Rom,, xi., 28, 29. * Zech., iv., 7. 



48 THE PERPETUITY OF THE COVENANT 



" The Scriptures, foreseeing that God would justify the 
heathen through faith, preached before the Gospel unto 
Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed."* 
This fact enters into the faith of all believers ; and it forms 
the very hope of the Gentiles, never to be renounced, never 
to be forgotten. And is it well to let oblivion pass over the 
other promise to Abraham, no less clearly given, no less 
solemnly guarantied 1 Is there no danger to faith itself 
in quashing the question of the fulfilment of the promise, 
and the performance of the oath of the Lord, concern- 
ingf the land, as if it were not to be raised from the dor- 
mancy of ages into which it has fallen among Christian 
men ? It is by these lioo immutable things, his promise and 
his oath, in which it was impossible for God to lie, that we 
have a strong consolation who have fled for refuge to lay 
hold upon the hope set before us.f And it was by these 
two immutable things that Israel's charter to the land was 
confirmed ; and on them it reposes, as secure as the hope 
of the faithful. 

But it may be asked, in words more expressive of dis- 
belief than of faith, What are the Israelites as a people, 
hitherto a reproach and by-word among the nations, that 
they should possess any distinctive privilege What is 
the land of Israel more than any other land ? Or, save for 
the memory of the past, what is Jerusalem more than any 
other city ? That, in each case, which the Lord hath 
declared that they shall be. What — for the question is 
equivalent — is the truth and faithfulness of God ? What 
his covenant and his oath ? What the purpose which He 
hath declared ? and what the consequent glory of his name 1 
We ask not here what the Israelites were under the first 
covenant and its curses, but what they shall be under the 
<jecond and its blessings. What say the Scriptures ? and 
are they to be believed or not ? 

No testimony can be more explicit and decided than that 
of David himself, as twice recorded in Scripture, that the 
part of the covenant with Abraham which Christians are so 
^)rone to overlook, ought to be held in perpetual remem- 
Grance, as well as the other, " Seek ye the Lord and his 
«trengtli ; seek his face continually. Remember his marvel- 
lous works that He hath done, his wonders, and the judg- 
ments of his mouth ; O ye seed of .lacob his servant, ye 

* Gal., lii., 8. t Heb., vi., 18. 



CONCERNING THE LAND. 



49 



children of Jacob, his chosen ones. He is the Lord our 
God ; his judgments are in all the earih. Be ye mindful 
always of his covenant, the word which He commanded to a 
thousand generations ; even the covenant which He made 
with Abraham, and his oath unto Isaac ; and hath enjoined 
the same to Jacob for a law, and to Israel for an everlasting 
covenant ; saying, Unto thee will I give the land of Ca?taan, 
the lot of your inheritanre ; when ye were but few, even a 
few, and strangers in it."* 

David feared no infringement of the covenant with his 
house, because of that which the Lord had made before 
with the fathers. Nay, rather, when seated upon his 
throne, an anointed and covenanted king- exercisins a 
sovereignty which was recognised from the borders of 
Egypt to the banks of the Euphrates, he looked back for 
twelve, thirteen, and fourteen generations, to the days when 
the covenant was made with Abraham ere he had a son for 
an heir, attested to Isaac, whose two sons were all his 
family, and confirmed as a law and an everlasting covenant 
to Jacob, all of whose descendants, on leaving Canaan, num- 
bered threescore and ten persons ; and he did not limit its 
duration to a few more generations of shortlived mortals, 
but, knowing in whom he believed, he spake like a king, 
with whom and with whose house the Eternal had made a 
covenant forever; and in words which earthly monarchs 
cannot use in speaking of their dynasties or kingdoms, he 
called on all the sons of Jacob to be always mindful of the 
covenant which the Lord had commanded to a thousand 
generations, that the land of Canaan should be the lot of 
their inheritance. 

So far was the covenant with David from annulling this 
or any other of the promises of God, that, ever after its an- 
nouncement, the prophets, who testified of the coming of 
the Messiah, speak in other strains than those of Moses 
and Joshua touching the final return of the seed of Jacob to 
the land of their inheritance. The promises, expressed in 
positive terms, are again free and unconditional as when 
first made to Abraham, and are no longer dependant on the 
obedience or merit of man, but on the faithfulness and 
mercy of God. They are, indeed, to be fulfilled, as they 
were first uttered, to believing men. But for the redemp- 
tion of Israel the Lord hath provided ; and He who said to 

* 1 Olu-ou., sxi., 11-19. Ps. cv., 4-12. 

E 



50 



THE fliEPEfUlft OF THE COVENANT 



Jacob, I will make Lhee faUhful — I will not leave thee till I 
have done all that I have spoken to thee of, will give his 
seed a heart io know him, and put a new spirit within them* 
and make with them an everlasting covenant of peace. 

Dark as the history of any nation, and often utterly im- 
pervious to all human hope, as that of Israel in past ages 
has been, yet there has ever been a light sufficient to illu- 
minate the darkest place, and the radiance of the sure word 
of prophecy has shone throughout the gloom, and, where 
all else was the blackness of darkness, has often opened up 
to view, as a lamp that burjielh, the covenant that standeth 
forever. 

When, as the Lord had also sworn, the curses of the 
covenant which He made with the Israelites when they 
came out of Egypt, fell most heavily on all the evil family 
that had brought them on their own heads, and threatened 
to lay the house of Jacob in the dust forever, there was still 
some token or testimony from the Lord that these curses 
would not be of everlasting duration ; and there was yet 
hope for Israel, founded on the promise to the fathers, and 
the assurance that the covenant with David would finally 
lead to the completion of the covenant with Abraham. 

Before Israel became an outcast people, idolaters as they 
had been, multiplying transgressions, and, though chasten- 
ed, refusing to return, and revolting more and more, yet the 
Lord addressed them like a father whose heart yearns on 
banishing from his household the child of his bowels, though 
a rebellious son, " How shall I give thee up, Ephraim ? 
how shall I deliver thee, Israel ? how shall I make thee as 
Admah ? how shall I set thee as Zeboim ? my heart is turn- 
ed within me, my repentings are kindled together. I will 
not execute the fierceness of mine anger, I will not return 
to destroy Israel."! And when the righteous sentence 
must come forth from the Holy One of Israel, it is wound 
up with a promise of that final deliverance which shall be 
found in the Son of David, for whom mercy shall he kept 
forever, and with whom the covenant shall stand for ever- 
more.^ 

Before the ten tribes were plucked from their land, and 
led captive into Assyria, their return in the latter days was 
explicitly declared in the words of Hosea, as in many other 
passages of Scripture. " The children of Israel shall abide 

* Jer., xxiv., 7. Ezek,, xxxvi,, 26. t Hosea, xi,, 8, 9. t Psalm Ixxxix. 



CONCERNING THE LAND- 



51 



many days without a king, and without a prince, and with- 
out sacrifice, and without an image, and without ephod, and 
without teraphini. Afterward shall the children of Israel 
return, and seek the Lord their God, and David their king ; 
and shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter duys^^ 
Even when outcast Israel was like a child banished from 
a father's house, the words of the Lord are still those of a 
Father to Israel. Is Epfiraim my dear son ? is he a pJeas- 
ani child ? for since I did speak against him, I do earnestly 
remember him still: therefore my bowels are troubled for 
him ; I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the Lord. 
Turn again^ O virgin of Israel, turn agaiii to these thy 
cities.] 

Though Israel was cast out, but not cast away forever, 
the sceptre was not to depart from Judah till Shiloh should 
come ; and that tribe continued unbroken till the Messiah 
was cut off, and the city and the sanctuary, as Daniel fore- 
told, were destroyed by the Romans, and desolations ap- 
pointed even to the consummation. But long ere then they 
suffered, though in a slighter degree, the penalties of a bro- 
ken law, and Judah could not always retain Jerusalem. 
Yet before their seventy years' captivity began, a pledge 
was first given by the prophet who foretold the extirpation 
of the Jews from the land of their fathers, that the covenant 
with Abraham, as finally to be fulfilled, was not abrogated 
for an hour. 

When, after having possessed Judea for eight hundred 
and fifty years, the Jews were about to be led captive to 
Babylon, and Jerusalem to be given into the hands of the 
Chaldeans, as the word of the Lord declared ; and, in hu- 
man seeming, the covenant was to be broken by the depar- 
ture forever of the last remaining tribe of Israel, Jeremiah, 
at the command of the Lord, bought a field in Anathoth, the 
redemption of which was his right, from Hananeel, his un- 
cle's son. He subscribed the evidence, and sealed it, and 
took witnesses, and weighed the money in the balances, 
and took the evidence of the purchase, and gave it unto 
Baruch, in the sight of Hananeel, in the presence of the 
witnesses that subscribed the book, before all the Jews that 
sat in the court of the prison. And he charged Baruch be- 
fore them, saying, Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, the God 
of Israel, Take these evidences, and put them in an earth- 

* Hosea, iii., 4, 5. t Jer., xxxi., 20, 21. 



5^ THE PERPETUITY" OP THE COVENANT 

en vessel, that they may continue many days. For thus 
saith the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, Houses, and 
fields, and vineyards shall be possessed again in this land. 
And Jeremiah prayed unto the Lord, saying, Ah, Lord God ! 
behold, thou hast made the heaven and the earth by thy pow- 
er and stretched-out arm, and there is nothing too hard for 
thee, &c. He spake of the signs and wonders which the 
Lord had wrought in bringing them to that land, which He 
did swear to ihtir fathers to give them. He acknowledged 
that their transgression was the cause of their calamities ; 
and he appealed to the enemies around Jerusalem as a sure 
evidence that they would be led captive, and to the pur- 
chase he had made as a sure token of their return. And in 
the word that came to him, we read, " Now, therefore, thus 
saith the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning this city 
whereof ye say, it shall be delivered into the hand of the 
King of Babylon, by the sword, and by the famine, and by 
the pestilence : Behold, I will gather them out of oil coun- 
tries, whither I have driven them in mine anger, and in my 
fury, and in great wrath ; and I will bring them again unto 
this place, and I will cause them to dwell safely : arid they 
shall be my people, and I will be their God. And I will 
give them one heart, and one way, that they may fear me 
forever, for the good of them and of their children after 
them : and I will make an everlasting covenant with them, 
that I will 7iot tui'n away from them to do them good ; but I 
will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart 
from me. Yea, I will rejoice over them to do them good, 
and I will plant them in this land assuredly with my whole 
heart and with my whole soulJ^* 

These words, though heard in the court of the prison of 
the besieged city of Jerusalem, sound not like a repealing 
of the everlasting covenant. The decree of Heaven, an- 
nounced by the prophet, had indeed given that city to the 
Chaldeans, and doomed its inhabitants to exile and captivi- 
ty. But even while the mounts of its enemies and destined 
captors were raised around Jerusalem, a valid purchase of 
a field in the adjoining country of Benjamin could be made, 
and the evidence of that purchase be deposited in an earth- 
en vessel, to rest secure till the seed of Jacob should return 
to their own land. While of themselves they were as hope- 
less as helpless, it was given to the prophet, ere the van- 

* Jer., xxxii. 



CONCERNING THE LAND. 



53 



quished captives were exiles from Judea, to know and to 
record, that the Lord would assuredly plant them in their 
own land again. The long-suffering patience of the Holy- 
One of Israel, wearied with repenting, could not bear with 
their iniquities any more ; and, in fulfilment of his own 
word, the last remnant of the seed of Jacob was to be pluck- 
ed from the land promised to their fathers and to their seed 
forever. But, even at the very time when the Lord had 
brought a sword upon them to avenge the quarrel of his cov- 
enant, and they were about to be delivered into the hand of 
their enemy, and the land to be emptied of the children of 
Israel, as Moses and Joshua had forewarned them, yet the 
covenant itself was ratified by the Lord, with his whole hearty 
and with his whole soul, as " assuredly" as it had been, at 
the beginning, by the oath which He sware unto their fa- 
thers, ere ever Abraham or Jacob, at any time, departed out 
of the land of Canaan. 

True indeed it is, that in the last siege of Jerusalem, 
when the judgments of the Lord came upon them to the ut- 
termost, there was not a prophet to tell again that their ex- 
patriated race ever would return. No field in the whole 
land of Israel could be purchased then to be inherited in 
the next or any succeeding generation. Among all the sons 
of Jacob, scattered everywhere throughout the wide world, 
there has not for many past ages been a man who, like the 
sojourner Abraham, had a right to a cave in Canaan, and 
to the field and trees around it, nor to a parcel of ground 
such as Jacob gave to his son Joseph ; nor is there an earth- 
en vessel now containing the evidence of the purchase, or 
the chartered right to the possession of a single field in the 
country of Benjamim, or of any of the tribes of Israel, which 
has continued since Jerusalem was besieged by the Ro- 
mans, like that in which the prophet put the record of the 

egal purchase of the field in Anathoth. In the dark day 
of Judah's fall, the sun had gone down over the prophets, and 
they had a vision* And once in all their history, Israel 
left Canaan without a renewal of the covenant, and was 
driven out in anger, and in wrath, and in great indignation, 
without one word from the Lord of comfort or of hope. 
Even irrespective of the termination of the limited and ap- 
pointed time, " the end" of Jerusalem declared that the time 

was come in which the words of Daniel were fulfilled, in 

* Mic, iii., 6. 

E 2 



64 



THE PERPETUITY OF THE COVENANT 



the next and greatest destruction of the city : " And the 
peopie of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city 
and the sanctuary ; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, 
and unto the end of the war desolations are determined : 
and He shall cause the sacrifice and oblation to cease, and 
for the overspreading of abominations He shall make it des- 
olate, even until the consummation,"* 6lc. But prior to 
that time, according to the same prophetic word, Messiah 
the Prince was to come, and be cut ofT. And no prophet, 
possessing the Spirit only in measure, was needed to speak 
when Jesus had spoken. And He, of whom all the proph- 
ets testified, wept over Jerusalem, and thus bewailed its 
coming destruction : " Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that killest 
the prophets and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how 
often would I have gathered thy children together, even as 
a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye 
would not ! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. 
For I say unto you, ye shall not see me henceforth lill ye 
shall say, Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the 
Lord !"f " Ye shall be led captive into all nations ; and 
Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the 
time of the Gentiles be fulfilled. "J These words imply that 
the time, however distant, would come at last, when Jeru- 
salem shall no longer be trodden down of the Gentiles. 
Upon his cross was the inscription written, in Hebrew, 
Greek, and Latin, so that Jews and Gentiles alike might 
read, This is Jesus, the King of the Jews. After his resur- 
rection He instructed his disciples in the things pertaining 
to the kingdom of God ; and, as if seeking to know more 
than He had seen meet to reveal, immediately before his 
ascension they asked the Lord if He would at that time re- 
store again the kingdom of Israel,^ without the expression 
of a doubt that He would some time restore it, but resting 
the question which they put upon the certainty of the fact, 
their faith in which the answer of Jesus did not shake, " It 
is not for 5^ou to know the times or the seasons which the 
Father hath in his own power." 

When the armed band laid hold on Jesus, and when He 
commanded Peter to put up his sword into its sheath, He 
said, " Thinkest thou that 1 cannot now pray unto my Fa- 
ther, and He shall presently give me more than twelve le- 



* Dan., ix., 26, 27. 
J Luke, xxi.5 24. 



t Matt., xxiii., 37-39. 
§ Acts, i.^ 3, 6, 



CONCERNING THE LAND. 



55 



gions of angels ? But how then shall the Scriptures he ful- 
jilled that thus it must be ?"* How could they have been 
fulfilled, notwithstanding the unbelief of the Jews, if the 
Messiah had not been cut off, if the righteous servant of the 
Lord had not been led as a lamb to the slaughter, and cut 
off out of the land of the living, and if He had not poured 
out his soul unto death, an offering for sin ?t But the proph- 
ets testified beforehand not only the sufferings of the Mes- 
siah, but the glory that should follow. And how, notwith- 
standing the unbelief of Gentiles, shall the Scriptures be 
fulfilled, if the kingdom be not restored to Israel, if the cov- 
enant which God made with Abraham, and confirmed by 
an oath to Isaac, and for a law to Jacob, and for an ever- 
lasting covenant to Israel, to give to their seed the land of 
Canaan for an everlasting possession, be not ratified in fact? 
Nay, how shall the oath which the Lord hath sworn be per- 
formed, if, contrary to his word, the thing that hath gone out 
of his lips be altered, or be not done ? 

Speaking after the manner of men, the apostle says, If 
hut a man^s covenant he confirmed, no man annuUeth or add- 
eth thereunto .\ 7'he covenant of God with Abraham as ex- 
pressly bears that the promised land, as meted out and de- 
fined, was given to him and to his seed for an everlasting 
possession, as that all the families of the earth shall be bless- 
ed in him. And if a man's covenant cannot be annulled or 
bear abatement, how much less shall the Lord's ? In cov- 
enants between man and man the parties may be perfectly 
sincere, and hold themselves absolutely bound to the com- 
pletion of every word that is written in the bond ; and yet 
things unforeseen and uncontrollable may render the deed 
abortive, and turn into utter worthlessness every guarantee 
that man could offer. And though an oath for confirmation 
be the most solemn and sacred of pledges, it may secure 
nothing, and its violation only prove that man is not guilt- 
less before God. But Christians surely may hear and be- 
lieve what Balaam spake by the Spirit of the Lord, when 
Balak asked him concerning Israel, " What hath the Lord 
spoken ? And he said. Rise up, Balak, and hear ; hearken 
unto me, thou son of Zippor : God is not a man, that He 
should lie ; neither the son of man, that He should repent : 
hath He said, and shall He not do it ? or hath He spoken, 
and shall He not make it good ^ He hath blessed, and I 

* ^latt., xxvi., 53, 54, t Isa., liii, | Qst\., in., 15. 



56 



THE PERPETUITY OF THE COVENANT 



cannot reverse it."* Reassurance of the same eternal truth 
was given by Samuel, when he announced to Saul that his 
kingdom, the first in Israel, was rent from him and given to 
another : *' The Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent ; 
for He is not a man that He should repent. "f Neither can 
any unforeseen contingencies frustrate his purpose — for with 
him there are none — nor can any casue arise of potency 
enough to annul the covenant which He hath declared to 
be everlasting. When He lifted up his hai»d to the fatiiers 
concerning it, He saw, as He had decreed, the end from 
the beginning. And age after age He declared its perpetu- 
ity, even when it seemed to have ceased forever. 

The Lord did confirm his covenant, A smoking furnace 
and a burning lamp were its visible confirmation on the day 
He made it with Abraham. He is not unmindful of his 
covenant, or of the sign He gave to the father of the faith- 
ful that his seed should inherit the land forever. The Lord 
thus speaks : For Zion's sake 1 will not hold my peace, and 
for Jerusalem's sake 1 will not rest, until the righteousness 
thereof go forth as brightness, and the salvation thereof as 
a lamp that burneth. And the Gentiles shall see thy righ- 
teousness, and all kings thy glory. Thou shalt no more be 
termed Forsaken, neither shall thy land be any more termed 
Desolate ; but thou shalt be called Hephzi-bah [my delight 
is in her), and thy land Beulah {inarried), for the Lord de- 
lighteth in thee, and thy land shall be married,\ Slc, They 
shall build the old wastes, they shall raise up the former 
desolations, they shall repair the waste cities, the desola- 
tions of many generations, &c.§ 

So numerous, clear, and positive are the prophecies 
which declare the final restoration of the Israelites to the 
land of their inheritance, that the denial of it may well 
seem to be an impeachment of the truth of God, in regard 
to the very thing on which He hath staked his faithfulness. 
On that topic, with its collateral themes, of momentous im- 
port to the world, the author may enter in other pages than 
the present. But as to their final possession of the land, a 
single text, after the general view which has been given of 
the subject, more tharj a thousand arguments, may serve to 
show how assuredly the covenant with Abraham concern- 
ing the land shall yet be accomplished. " Thus saith the 



* Num., xxiii., 17-19. 
% Isa.j Ixii., 1-4, &c. 



\ 1 Sam., XV., 20 
9 Ibid., Ixi., 4. 



CONCERNING THE LAND. 



57 



Lord God, Behold, I will take the children of Israel from 
among the heathen, whither they be gone, and will gather 
them on every side, and bring them into their own land. 
And I will make them one nation in the land upon the 
mountains of Israel, and one king shall be king to them all ; 
and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they 
be divided into two kingdoms any more at all. And David 
my servant shall be king over them, and they shall have 
one shepherd ; they shall also walk in my judgments, and 
observe my statutes, and do them. And they shall 

DWELL IN THE LAND WHICH I GAVE UNTO JaCOB MY SER- 
VANT, wherein your fathers have dwelt ; and they shall 
dwell therein, even they, and their children, and their chil- 
dren's children, forever ; and my servant David shall he their 
■prince forever. Moreover, I will make a covenant of peace 
with them : it shall be an everlasting covenant with 
them : and I will place them, and multiply them, and will 
set my sanctuary in the midst of them /or evermore^* 

The unbelief of the Israelites could not make void the 
promise of God, either when they first reached the borders 
of Canaan, or when the last tribe was rooted out of their 
land. Neither can it now. The Egyptians, seeing an un- 
believing generation dying in the wilderness, might say that 
the Lord was not able to bring them into the land which He 
had promised unto them. But others than they have doubted 
and disbelieved ; and objections against belief in the res- 
toration of the kingdom to Israel have not been wanting in 
modern times. And now that Israel and Judah have for 
ages been expatriated, the conclusion may seem to be ra- 
tional that the Lord hath cast them off, and abolished his 
covenant. All such reasonings, then, when fully consider' 
ed, may finally be cast at once into the balance of the sanc- 
tuary, that their weight, if any, may be tried. And all such 
objections may be answered by the icord of the Lord which 
came to Jeremiah, saying, " Considerest thou not what this 
people have spoken, saying. The two families which the 
Lord hath chosen, He hath even cast them off? thus ihev 
have despised my people, that they should be no more a 
nation before them. Thus saith the Lord, If my covenant 
be not with the day and night, and if I have not appointed 
the ordinances of heaven and earth, then will I cast away 
the seed of Jacob, and David my servant, so that I will not 

* Ezek., zxxvii., 19-26. 



68 



THE PERPETUITY OF THE COVENANT 



take any of his seed to be rulers over the seed of Abraham, 
Isaac, and Jacob, for I will cause their captivity to return, 
and have mercy on them."* 

Finally, as at the first, " To the law and to the testimony ; 
if they speak not according to this word, it is because there 
is no light in them."t Thus saith the Lord, the King of 
Israel, and his Redeemer the Lord of Hosts, I am the Jirst^ 
and I am the last, and besides me there is no God. And 
who, as I, shall call, and shall declare it, and set it in order 
for me, since I appointed the ancient 'people ? and the things 
that are coming, and shall come, let them show unto them. 
Who hath wrought and done it, calling the generations from 
the beginning 1 I the Lord, the first, and wuth the last ; I 
am He.| David testified of his Son, and yet his Lord, 
Thou wilt not leave my soul in the grave, neither wilt thou 
suffer thy Holy One to see corruption.'^ Thou hast ascend- 
ed on high, II &c. To the prisoner in Patmos, who bare 
record for the testimony of Jesus Christ, that Holy One 
appeared after his ascension ; and these were the first 
words, like those of a great trumpet, that burst on the apos- 
tle's ear : " I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last,"^ 
He that is holy, He that is true, He that is the beginning 
and the end,** He that hath the key of David, He that open- 
eth and no man shutteth, and shutteth and no man openeth, 
thus uttered the first word of his Revelation, repeating what 
the prophet had testified of him as the King and the Re- 
deemer of Israel, " I am the first and the last." 

He is the first. The same apostle testifies of him, "In 
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, 
and the Word was God." When the everlasting covenant 
had its origin, the Word of the Lord came to Abraham, 
saying, I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward. 
Ere Jacob's name was changed to Israel, there wrestled 
with him a man till the breaking of the day. And of that 
wrestling it is written. By his strength he had power with 
us ; he had power with God, and prevailed ; as it is also 
said. In Bethel he spake with us, even the Lord God of 
Hosts ; the Lord is his memorial. ff When Israel first en- 
tered into Canaan, at the time when the manna ceased, 
and when they did first eat the fruit of the land, there stood 



* Jer., xxxiii., 24-26. 
^ Psalm xvi., 10. 
** Rev., i., 11, 



+ Isa., viii., 20. t Ibid., xli., 4 ; xliv., 6, 7. 

II Ibid., Ixviii., 18. IT Rev., i., 11, 
|t Hos., xii., 5. 



CONCERNING THE LAND. 



59 



a man over against Joshua with a drawn sword in his hand, 
and Joshua went unto him, and said unto him, Art thou for us 
or for our adversaries ? And he said, Nay ; but as the captain 
of the Lord's host am I now come. And Joshua fell on his 
face to the earth, and did worship.* When, in the fulness 
of time, the new and ev'^erlasting covenant was first brought 
in, the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.f But 

He is the last as well as the first, the end no less than 
the beginning. When that covenant of mercy and of peace 
shall at last and forever be established with the house of 
Israel and with ihe house of Judah, the prophetic testimony, 
no longer shadowed by a veil on the mind of Gentile or of 
Jew, shall be read of all men, even as it is written : " Be- 
hold, the days come that I will perform that good thing 
which I have promised unto the house of Israel, and to the 
house of Judah. In those days, and at that time, will I 
cause the Branch of righteousness to grow up unto David ; 
and He shall execute judgment and righteousness in the 
land. In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem 
shall dwell safely; and this is the name wherewith He 
shall be called, the Lord (Jehovah) our Righteousness,^ 
&c. I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all 
countries whither I have driven them, and will bring them 
again to their folds, and they shall be fruitful and increase. 
Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise 
imto David a righteous Branch, and a king shall reign and 
prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. 
In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell 
safely ; ai»d this is the name whereby He shall be called, 
The Lord our Righteousness. Therefore, behold the 
days come, saith the Lord, that they shall no more say, 
The Lord liveth which brought up the children of Israel 
out of the land of Egypt. But the Lord liveth which 
brought up, and which led the seed of the house of Israel 
out of the north country, and from all the countries whither 
I had driven them ; and they shall dwell in their own 
land."§ In the same chapter, it is said by the prophet who 
testifies of these things, He that hath my word, let him 
speak my word faithfully. What is the chaff" to the wheat ? 
saith the Lord. Is not my word like a fire ? saith the 
Lord ; and like a hammer, that breaketh the rock in pieces ? 



* Josh., v., 13, 14. 
% Jef., ;sxxiii., 14, 16. 



t John, i., 1. 

\ Ibid., xxiii., 3-8. 



60 



THE BOUNDARIES OF 



Thus shall ye say every one to his neighbour, and every 
one to his brother. What hath the Lord spoken 1* 

Such an injunction has only to be regarded, that the per- 
petuity of the covenant of the Lord with Abraham concern- 
ing the land may be seen. But it is no less requisite in re- 
gard to our next iisquiry than the present. And as the last 
proof which may here be given that the covenant still stands, 
it may be conclusive to hear what the Lord did speak con- 
cerning the inheritance of Israel, in anticipation of those 
days when it shall be apportioned in a maimer altogether 
new amontjf all the tribes, at a time when Israel was out- 
cast in Assyria, and Judah captive in Babylon, and when 
they had far less liberty than they have now to return to 
their own land. "Thus saith the Lord God, This shall be 
the border, whereby ye shall inherit the land, according to 
the twelve tribes of Israel. And ye shall inherit it one as 
well as another, concerning the which I lifted up my hand 
to give it unto your fathers."! 



CHAPTER XL 

THE BOUNDARIES, OR BOPxDERS OF THE LAND, GIVEN BY 
COVENANT TO THE ISRAELITES, AS DEFINED IN SCRIP- 
TURE. 

"A good land and a large." — Exod., iii., 6. 
SECTION I. 

Abraham, obedient to the word of the Lord, having left 
his country, his kindred, and his father's house, went from 
Haran to Canaan. Having entered it, not knowing whither 
he was to go, or where he was to take up even a temporary 
abode, he continued his journey, and passed through the 
land unto the place of Sichem, unto the plain of Moreh. 
There " the Lord appeared unto him and said, Unto thy 
seed will I give this land. "J The first act of Abraham was 
to build there an altar unto the Lord, who appeared unto 
him. From thence, no longer journeying onward, he re- 
moved unto a mountain on the east of Bethel ; and there, 

* Jer., ixiii., 28, 29, 37. t E'iiekr, xlyii., 13^ 14, | Gen., lii., 7. 



THE PROMISED LAND. 



61 



as we read for the first time since he left his father's house, 
he " pitched his tent," having Bethel on tlie west, and Hai 
on the east ; and though he had no city or house to dwell 
in, " he built an altar unto the Lord, and called on the name 
of the Lord."* On the plain of Moreh, where his journey 
from his fatherland was stayed, the first promise was given 
him of another land unto his seed, even that to which he 
had come at the command of the Lord. That promise was 
renewed, after his return from Egypt, when he had come 
again unto " the place where his tent had been placed at the 
beginning, unto the place of the altar which he had made 
there at the first." Appearing to him there, not on the plain 
of Moreh, but upon a mountain east of Bethel, from whence 
the land, afterward called Holy, stretched on every side to 
the farthest extent of view, " the Lord said unto Abram, Lift 
vp now thine eyes^ and look from the place where thou art, 
northward^ and southward, and eastward, and westward : for 
all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy 
seed forever. Arise, walk through the land in the length of 
it, and in the hreadth of it ; for I will give it unto thee.^^f 
On so elevated a site, and in so pure an atmosphere as that 
of the land of Canaan, places far distant seem comparative- 
ly near, and a large territory is encircled within range of 
view. But nowhere, on any side, could the patriarch see a 
single spot, though the peak of a far-distant mountain, that 
formed not a portion of the land given by that word to him 
and to his seed forever. The Canaanite and the Perizzite 
then dwelt in the immediately circumjacent lands, but his 
eye could not reach to other regions, as yet to himself un- 
known : and he was commanded to walk through the land 
in its length and in its breadth, as his own by the promise 
of the Lord, whose voice he had obeyed in coming forth 
from Ur of the Chaldees, never to return. The Lord had 
promised to show him the land whither He would have him 
to go ; and now He gave that land in all its extent to him 
and to his seed forever. 

Again, still more specifically and extensively, and farther 
than the eye of man could any where reach or circumscribe, 
the already repeated promises were confirmed by a cove- 
nant, at the time when the Lord announced to the aged pa- 
triarch that He would give unto him a son for his heir, the 
heir — no less than the land — promise . Abraham believed 

* Gen., v., 8. t Ibid., xiii., 14, 15, 17. 

F 



62 



THE BOUNDARIES OF 



in the Lord, and He counted it to him for righteousness ; 
and the land, no longer undefined, was marked out more 
clearly and largely by the word of the Lord, than before it 
had been by the eye of the houseless stranger to whom He 
gave it. With no stinted bounds assigned, it was a boon, 
rich and large, worthy of the Lord of the whole earth to 
give to Abraham his servant, and as such, his friend. "In 
the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, say- 
ing, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the River of 
Egypt unto the great river, the River Euphrates : the Ken- 
ites, and the Kcnizzites, and the Kadmonites, and the Hit- 
tiies, and the Perizzites, and the Rephaims, and the Amorites, 
and the Canaanites, and the Girgashites, and the Jebusiies.^^* 
All the countries possessed by these various inhabitants 
were given unto the seed of Abraham ; and while the places 
in which some of these nations dwelt might in after ages 
be unknown, the farthest borders of the iriheritance were 
named, and every intermediate region was included in the 
land of promise. Abraham had not a child, nor a foot of 
ground. He believed in the Lord, and trusted in Him as 
his portion. Lest the King of Sodom should say that he 
had made Abraham rich, the faithful patriarch, appealing to 
the Most High God, the possessor of heaven and earth, re- 
fused to take from a thread even to a shoe-latchet of any- 
thing that was his,f though he might have retained the 
spoils which he had retaken from the kings he had van- 
quished, and which were freely offered him. He continued 
a stranger and sojourner in the land, which in faith he al- 
ready held as his own, and the inheritance of his seed for- 
ever, from the River of Egypt to the River Euphrates. 

The covenant with Abraham had no terms but those of 
a free and a full gift : Unto thee and to thy seed vhU I give 
this land, from the River of Egypt to the River Euphrates, 
There is no restriction, nor condition, nor reservation what- 
ever ; nor is there any exclusion even of a foot-breadth of 
the wide-extended region that lies between these far-separ- 
ated rivers. Such is the covenant of the Lord with Abra- 
ham concerning the inheritance — the land which He lifted 
up his hand to give unto the fathers. 

The same covenant was renewed, alike unconditionally, 
in all its freeness and in all its fulness, to Isaac and to Ja- 
cob, the heirs with him of the same pro?nise. And uniformly 

* Gen., XV., 18-23. t Ibid., xiv., 23, 



THE PROMISED LAND. 



63 



too, when renewed with them, as when made with Abra- 
ham, the covenant of the Lord — comprehensive as that of 
the God of the whole earth, who had called Abraham in or- 
der to the final execution of his purposes of grace and mer- 
cy, not to one nation only, but to all — associated with the 
gift of the land in its fullest extent to their seed, a ilessing 
in their seed to all the families of the earth. 

Unto Isaac the Lord said, " Unto thee and unto thy seed 
will I give all these countries ; and I will perform the oath 
which / sware unto Abraham thy father : and I will make 
thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven, and will give 
unto thy seed all these countries ; and in thy seed shall all 
the nations of the earth he Messed ; because that Abraham 
obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, 
my statutes, and my laws."* Abraham believed and obey- 
ed ; and Isaac, though famine prevailed, sojourned in the 
land at the word of the Lord. 

Again, when the covenant concerning the land was con- 
firmed to Jacob for a law, and to Israel for an everlasting 
covenant, the assigned extent of the inheritance was large 
and undiminished ; and the same blessing as before, and 
from the same source, was ultimately destined to be shed 
abroad throughout the world, till it should reach all the fam- 
ilies of men from the seed of Jacob. The Lord said unto 
the father of ail the tribes of Israel, " I am the Lord God of 
Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac : the land where- 
on thou li.est, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed ; and thy 
seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and Ihou shalt spread 
abroad to the west and to the east, and to the north and to the 
south, and in thee and in thy seed shall all the faiiiilies of the 
earth be blessedy^ The land which I gave Abraham and 
Isaac, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed after thee will 
I give the land. "J 

When the Lord first appeared unto Moses, with the de- 
clared purpose of fulfilling his promise, as the God of Abra- 
ham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, He said, " / am come down to 
deliver my people, and to bring them up out of the land of 
Egypt, and to bring them unto a good land and a large. 
And before any part of their inheritance passed into the 
possession of the children of Israel, the limits of the land 
were farther defined. " By little and by little I will drive 



* Gen., xxvi., 3-5. 
JExod.jXxxv., 12. 



t Ibid., xxviii., 1, 3, 14. 
ij Ibid., iii., 8. 



64 



THE BOUNDARIES OP 



tliem out before thee, until thou be increased, and inherit 
the land. And I will set thy hounds by the Red Sea, even 
unto the sea of the Philistines, and from the desert unto the 
river ; for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into 
your hand, and thou shalt drive them out before thee. Thou 
shalt make no covenant with them, nor with their gods. 
They shall not dwell in the land, lest they make thee sin 
against me."* " If ye shall diligently keep all these com- 
mandments which I command you, to do them, to love the 
Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, and to cleave unto 
him, then will the Lord drive out all those nations from be- 
fore you, and ye shall possess greater nations and mightier 
than yourselves. Every place whereon the soles of your feet 
shall tread shall he yours ; from the wilderness and Lebanon, 
from the river, the River Euphrates, even unto the uHermost 
sea shall your coast he. There shall no man be able to 
stand before you ; for the Iword your God shall lay the fear 
of you and the dread of you upon all the land that ye shall 
tread upon, as He hath said unto you. Behold, I set before 
you this day a blessing and a curse, "f &c. 

After the tribes of Reuben and of Gad, and the half tribe 
of Manasseh, had received their inheritance on the east of 
the Jordan, the land of Canaan was assigned to the remain- 
ing nine tribes and a half. Its borders, or those of the Is- 
raelitish possessions which were then farther allocated, as 
specified in the thirty-fourth chapter of Numbers, do not in- 
clude, as sometimes represented, the whole of the land of 
Israel, for they passed not the Jordan, instead of reaching 
to the Euplirates. The western, and partly the southern 
and northern borders of the land are defined, but not the 
eastern, except as marking the bounds between those who 
then had, and those of their brethren who had not received 
their inheritance. On the south, the land of Edom was 
also excluded, as " the brotherly covenant" was not to be 
broken. But on the north, there was no such nor any other 
cause of limitation, and they were thus left free to reach 
the utmost bounds assigned to Israel. What these on every 
side were, the irrepealable charter, as written in the Scrip- 
tures, alone can determine. 

" As for the western border, ye shall have the great sea for 
a border : this shall he your west border. This shall he your 
north border ; from the great sea ye shall point out for you 

* Exod., xxiii., 30-33. t Deut., xi., 22-26. 



THE PROMISED LAND. 



65 



Mount Hor [lior-lia-lior) . From Mount Hor ye shall point 
out your border unto ike entrance of Hamoih ; and the goings 
forth of the border shall be to Zedad. And the border shall 
go on to Zf'.phron, and the goings out of it shall be at Hazar- 
enan : this shall be your north border. And ye shall point 
out your east border from Hazar-enan to Shephan ; and the 
coast shall go down from Shephan to Riblah, on the east side 
of Ainr* &c. 

Again, when all these tribes had dwelt in Canaan till 
Joshua was old and stricken in years, the land that remained 
to be possessed was defined, according to the word of the 
Lord, who had promised it to their fathers ; and the defini- 
tions of these territories show, as the Lord himself declared, 
that VERY MUCH LAND pertained by covenanted right to the 
seed of Jacob, besides that which they inherited in the days 
of Joshua. f 

" This is the land that yet remaineih : all the borders of 
the Philistines, and all Geshnri, /rom Silwr, which is before 
Egypt, even unto the borders of Ekn)n northward, which is 
counted to the Canaanite : five lords of the Philistines ; the 
Gazathites, and the Ashdothites, the Eshkalonites, the Git- 
tites, and the Ekronites ; also the Avites. From the south, 
all the land of the Cannaniles, nx\d Mearah that is beside the 
Sidonians, unto Aphek, to the borders of the Amorites : and 
all the land of the Giblifes, and all Lebanon towards the sun- 
rising, from Baal-gad under Mount Hermon, unto the enter- 
ing into Harnath ; all the inhabitants of the hill-country, from 
Lebanon unto Misrephoth-maim, and all the Sidonians. them 
will I drive out before the children of Israel; only divide 
thou it by lot unto the Israelites for an inheritance, as 1 have 
commanded thee. "J 

But the borders of the land, which was finally andybreuer 
to be inherited by the twelve tribes of Israel, were as ex- 
pressly and explicitly defined, after the last of them had 
been plucked from otf it, and while Judah was captive in 
Babylon, and Ephraim in Assyria, as they were thus marked 
out bv the word of the Lord to Joshua, when all the seed 
of Jacob dwelt in Canaan ; and when the large portion that 
remained was divided among them by lot, as if they had 
held it in actual possession, while yet faithful to the cove- 
nant of their God, " the land was subdued before them." 
Moses, a wanderer in the wilderness, and Ezekiel, an exile 

* Numb., xxxiv.j 6—11. "t" Josli., xiii., 1. ^ Ibid., 2—6. 

F 2 



66 



THE BOUNDARIES OF 



in Chaldea, were alike privileged to record the sure loord of 
a covenant-keeping God, by vi^hich the borders of the in- 
heritance are defined, and the perpetuity of the covenant 
declared j whether, in the one case, its truth had, for the 
first time, to be tried, or in the other, it seemed to have 
ceased forever, when all the tribes of Israel were exiled 
bondsmen, in countries far distant from Jerusalem and Sa- 
maria, 

" Thus saith the Lord God, This shall be the border 
whereby ye shall inherit the land according to the twelve 
tribes of Israel : Joseph shall have two portions. And ye 
shall inherit it one as well as another ; concerning the which 
I lifted up my hand to give it unto your fathers : and this 
land shall fall to you for inheritance. And this shall be the 
border of the land towards the north side, from the great sea, 
the way of Hethlon, as men go to Zedad ; Hamath, Bero- 
thah. Sibraim, which is between the border of Damascus 
and the border of Hamath ; Hazar-hatticon, which is by the 
coast of Hauran. And the border from the sea shall be 
Hazar-enan, the border of Damascus, and the north north- 
ward, and the border of Hamath. And this is the north 
side. And the east side ye shall measure from Hauran, and 
from Damascus, and from Gilead, and from the land of Is- 
rael by Jordan, from the border unto the east sea. And this 
is the east side. And the south side southward, from Ta- 
mar to the waters of strife in Kadesh, the river to the great 
sea. And this is the south side southward. The west side 
also shall be the great sea fro7n the border, till a man come 
over against Hamath. This is the west side. So shall ye 
divide this land according to the tribes of Israel. Now 
these are the names of the tribes. From the north end to 
the coast of the way of Hethlon, as one goeth to Hamath, 
Hazar-enan, the border of Damascus northward, to the coast 
of Hamath (for these are his sides east and west), a portion 
for Dan. And by the border of Dan, from the east side 
unto the west side, a portion for Asher,"* &c. 

The territory, secured by such charters to Israel, is not 
undefined, and cannot be forever doubtful. Its peculiar po- 
sition, in relation to the other kingdoms of the world, as 
well as its peculiar features, and qualities, or capabilities, 
as anciently exemplified, or yet more fully to be developed, 
require to be separately considered ; but these scriptural 

* Szek., xlvii., 13-23 ; xlviii,, \, 



THE PROMISED LAND. 



67 



records at once attest that its bounds are ample, and that it 
is a large, as it will also be shown in the sequel that it is a 
goodly land. The terms of" the covenant, were it only man's, 
are not to be tampered with, nor is their plain significancy 
to be at all abated. That of the Lord is not to be explained 
away in any manner that does not give a full meaning to 
every word of promise it contains. It is not needful, and 
it is not meet to qualify the words of the Holy One of Isra- 
el, whose promises to the fathers cannot fail. His word 
has its vindication in itself — its infallible certainty in his 
own Almighty power. He who set the bounds of the peo- 
ple according to the number of the children of Israel, at the 
time when He divided among the nations their inheritance, 
and separated the sons of Adam, or the whole race of man, 
fixed such borders of the inheritance of Israel as best befit 
an everlasting possession, and such as, though questioned 
or displaced in ages past, shall assuredly be known of all 
men when the covenant shall be fulfilled, and the whole 
earth shall be filled with his glory. 

From the new and final division among all the tribes of 
Israel, as described by Ezekiel, whereby they shall inherit 
the land, concerning the which the Lord lifted up his hand to 
give it unto their fathers, it is perfectly manifest, as speci- 
fied in every instance, that the borders of each tribe shall be 
from the east side unto the west side, or in parallel lines 
stretching throughout the whole " breadth of Immanuel's 
land." And thus — in respect to the extreme boundaries, 
comprehending them all — from the River of Egypt to the 
River Euphrates, setting the bounds by the Red Sea on the 
south, and from the River Euphrates to the great sea, or the 
Mediterranean, on the north, including all Lebanon, and all 
the hill-country to the entrance into Hamath with the Eu- 
phrates on the east, from the border to the east sea, and on 
the west, from the border to the River of Egypt, and from 
thence along the Mediterranean coast to the entrance into 
Hamath, lines have been drawn and borders have been set, 
which, if looked at with a single eye, might place the land 
in visible perspective before us, as the Lord espied it for 
the people whom He created for his glory, and to whom 
He gave it by an everlasting covenant, which He will yet 
remember. 

Though thus definitely marked, " the promised land" has 
often been measured by the far narrower bounds which Is- 



68 



THE BOUNDARIES OF 



rael of old actually possessed. Error is congenial to error, 
as truth to truth. While the perpetuity of the covenant 
concerning the land has been disregarded, the extent of the 
inheritance has shrivelled into mean dimensions. As if the 
kingdom were never to be restored to Israel, and the per- 
petual covenant had ceased forever, many critics and com- 
mentators, in dealing with the word that abideth forever, 
have set themselves to a merely antiquarian task, and have 
sought rather to fix the borders of the promised land by the 
limited region which the Israelites occupied of old, than to 
measure the guarantied inheritance itself by the borders 
which the Lord of the whole earth assigned it. The bor- 
ders, as prescribed, can alone rightfully determine what the 
extent of the land is which they bound and comprehend. 
They alone fix what the everlasting possess/on shall be. But 
they are not to be drawn from their true stations and trans, 
ported from them, in order to form an imaginary boundary 
around a temporary and partial possession, which in reality 
never reached them. The borders must determine the 
promised land, and not the land, as actually possessed, the 
borders. The territory solely possessed as their own, by a 
people faithless to their God, who broke the covenant into 
which they had entered with Him, does not necessarily 
form the measure of the whole inheritance promised to their 
fathers, and which shall be finally bestowed upon their 
faithful offspring, any more than the short time, according to 
the plaint of Isaiah, during which they held that portion of 
it as their own, limited the term of the everlasting covenant 
of unchangeable Jehovah. The time has not come, and 
never shall, till the sun and moon be no more, when they 
shall cease to be a people, and their name and nation fail 
before the Lord. More numerous than they were when 
they were rooted out of their father's land, they are still 
looking in millions to their return. And the sole question 
here is, not What were the limits of the land anciently oc- 
cupied by their race ? but What is the land, as defined in 
the Word of God, in its length and in its breadth, concern- 
ing which the Lord lifted up his hand to their fathers, as 
decreed from the beginning, and as it shall yet fall to the 
twelve tribes of Israel for their inheritance ? 

The investigation is important, not as limited merely to 
the illustration of the ancient, though scriptural, history of 
a rebellious race — for such, save only by a temporary and 



^HE PROMISED LAND. 



69 



often partial suspense, they were — but as pertaining to the 
immutability of the covenant, and of the words of promise it 
contains, by which the extent of Israel's inheritance — the 
gift of God to the patriarchs and to their seed — is defined ; 
and as thereby pertaining, too, to the future history of the 
world, and to the high destiny of Israel, when the covenant 
shall, in its full extent, be realized at last, and the large and 
goodly land, as the Lord himself has set its bounds, shall, 
according to his everlasting covenant, be their everlasting pos' 
session . 

Though often held to be identical, it is abundantly plain 
that the land possessed by the Israelites in ancient times 
formed but a portion of the promised inheritance. The 
covenant was made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as we 
have seen, on absolutely unconditional and unrestricted 
terms. The promises were Yea and Amen. The oath 
was essentially irrevocable. The arm of the Almighty 
would finally effectuate all that his hand had been lifted up 
to avouch to the believing patriarchs. But though He will 
never draw back his covenant, it must be ever known as 
that of a holy, as of a faithful God. Before his people en- 
tered into Canaan, nay, before they had reached either of 
the northern points of the Red Sea, by which the bounds 
of their inheritance were set — though they had passed that 
sea itself by a miracle as on dry ground — the law was given 
in thunder, and in lightning, and in fire from Sinai. It was 
added by reason of transgression long after the promise had 
been made. The condition of obedience was annexed to 
the covenant made with the Israelites ; and on that depend- 
ed not only the extent of the inheritance they would occu- 
py, but, save for the forbearance and long-suffering patience 
of their God, the possession of any part of it, even for a 
single day. If righteousness had come by the law to sinful 
man, then the borders of Israel of old might have been iden- 
tical with the bounds of their inheritance as set down in 
the covenant. Or if a priesthood, with all its paraphernalia, 
or, as the Gospel speaks, beggarly elements, could have 
drawn from bulls and goats blood efficacious for the atone- 
ment of sin, the transgressors of Israel might have broken 
the covenant and have kept the land. But explicit truths 
of the Old Testament, as well as fundamental doctrines of 
the New, are overlooked in maintaining that the covenant, 
even as respects the land, was fulfilled in all its extent to 



70 



THE BOUNDARIES 01* 



Israel of old. The law, broken and imperfectly obeyed, 
makes nothing perfect. And luider it Israel entered into 
Canaan ; under, it their enemies, though idolaters, were 
never driven out wholly before them ; under it even the pro- 
verbial extremities or borders of all Israel were not the Red 
Sea, nor the entrance into Hamath, nor yet the River of 
Egypt and the Euphrates, but Dan and Beersheba, with 
comparatively a small space between them ; under it the 
ten tribes were carried captives into Assyria, and Judah and 
Benjamin into Babylon ; under it, though not forever, the 
tabernacle and the throne of David fell ; and trusting in it, 
and not submitting to the righteousness that is of faith, the 
tribe of Judah, which remained unbroken and retained its 
lawgivers till Shiloh came, was cut off ; Jerusalem was laid 
even with the ground, and the Jews dispersed throughout 
all countries under heaven. The law was broken ; the 
condition of the Mosaic covenant was not kept ; and the 
land, in its full extent, was never possessed by a faithless 
people. 

Not only was the retention of the land, or the possession 
of any part of it, expressly conditional, on the first entrance 
of the Israelites into their inheritance, but they were from 
the first as expressly precluded from occupying as their 
own the smallest portion of the territories of the Edomites, 
Moabites, or Ammonites, which spread over an ample space. 
Yet all these were clearly included within the bounds of the 
everlasting inheritance of Israel. The land of Ammon lay 
on the opposite side of the valley of Jordan, straight over 
against the mountain east of Bethel, on which Abraham 
stood, when commanded by the Lord to look eastward, as 
well as in every other direction, on the land which He 
gave to him and to his seed forever. The mountains of 
Moab were among the most conspicuous in his view. And 
these regions, together with Mount Seir, unquestionably lay 
to the north af the Red Sea, the west of the Euphrates, and 
the east of the River of Egypt, and were thus contained 
within the terras of the covenant. But, though the iniquity 
of the Amorites was then full, the time was not come when 
the Moabites and Ammonites, the descendants of Lot, the 
brother's son of Abraham, or the Edomites, descended of 
Isaac, were to be dispossessed of their inheritance, and 
" the brotherly covenant" was not to be broken by the chil- 
dren of Israel. It is as clear that the countries in which 



THE PROMISED LAND. 



71 



they dwelt were excluded from the ancient land of Israel, 
of which, though afterward subjugated, they did not form a 
part, as that they were comprehended within the borders 
specified in the Abrahamic covenant, and that they are des- 
tined to form part of the inheritance of the Israelites on their 
final restoration. 

The reader will at once perceive how different is the 
scriptural record concerning them respectively, in these 
different circumstances and times. 

" The Lord spake unto Moses, Command the people, 
saying, Ye are to pass through the coast of your brethren, 
the children of Esau, which dwell in Seir. . . . Meddle 
not with them ; for I will not give you of their land, no, not 
so much as a foot-breadth, because I have given Mount 
Seir unto Esau for a possession.* . . . Distress not the 
Moabites, neither contend with them in battle ; for I will 
not give thee of their land for a possession, because I have 
given Ar unto the children of Lot for a possession.! . . . 
And when thou comest nigh over against the children of 
Ammon, distress them not, nor meddle with them ; for I 
will not give thee of the land of the children of Ammon any 
possession, because I have given it unto the children of Lot 
for a possession. "I 

But when Israel had compassed Edom, without possess- 
ing of it a foot-breadth, and lay encamped in the plains of 
Moab. and Balaam was brought forth by a heathen king to 
curse Israel, even he was constrained to take up a testi- 
mony for the far-distant times when there should be no re- 
straints, as there then were, on the full completion of the 
covenant. "I shall see him, but not now : I shall behold 
him, but not nigh : there shall come a star out of Jacob, and 
a sceptre shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners 
of Motth and destroy all the children of Sheth. Edom shall 
be a possession ; Seir also shall be a possession for his ene- 
mies ; and Israel shall do valiantly."'^ 

The prophets of Israel speak in terms alike consonant 
with the covenant with Jacob, in looking to that day when 
the root of Jesse shall stand for an ensign of the people of 
Israel. 

" He shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather 
together the dispersed of Judah from the four quarters of 
the earth. They shall spoil them of the east together : 

* Deut., ii., 2-5. t Ibid., 9. X Ibid., 19. Num., xxiv., 17, 18. 



72 



THE BOUNDARIES Of 



they shall lay their hand upon Edom and Moab, and the 
children of Ammon shall obey them,"* &c. " In that day 
will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, &c. 
That they may possess the remnant of Edom, and of all the 
heathen, that are called by my name, saith the Lord, who 
doth this. And I will plant them upon their land, and they 
shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have 
given them, saith the Lord."t " And it shall be said in that 
day, Lo, this is our God ; we have waited for him, and He 
will save us. For in this mountain shall the hand of the 
Lord rest, and Moab shall be trodden down under him, even 
as straw is trodden down for the dunghill. And He shall 
spread forth his hands in the midst of them, as he that 
swimmeth spreadeth forth his hands to swim,"| &c. " I 
will bring again the captivity of Moab in the latter day, 
saith the Lord."^ " I will bring again the captivity of the 
children of Ammon, saith the Lord."|| " The remnant of 
my people shall possess ihem.'^^ The house of Jacob shall 
be a fire, and the house of Esau for stubble ; and they of 
the south shall possess the mount of Esau.** 

It is not, therefore, a theme for argumentation, but a 
Scriptural truth to be believed, that, were it in this single 
instance alone, the borders of ancient Israel are not those 
of the covenanted heritage of Jacob. Edom, Moab, and 
Ammon, excluded in the one case, are included in the 
other. Yet all these, though a hundred and fifty miles 
intervened between their extreme boundaries, were but a 
small part of that large portion of the promised inheritance 
which never ranked of old in the land of Israel. 

The condition of the covenant was not fulfilled ; and be- 
sides the Edomites, Moabites, and Ammonites, who had a 
claim on the forbearance of Israel, more numerous enemies, 
who had none, were never driven out before them, and their 
lands were never left for the occupancy of the transgressors 
of God's holy law. 

Once, indeed, we read of a single, or. at most, a second 
generation that held undisturbed and unchallenged posses- 
sion of the land, which had everyw^here been subdued before 
them. Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all 
the days of the elders that outlived Joshua, and which had 



* Isa., li., 10, 14. 
^ JeT., xlviii., 47. 
** Obad., 18, 19. 



t Amos, ix., 11, 12, 15. 
II Ibid., xlix., 6. 



t Isa., XXV., 9-11. 
IT Zeph., ii., 9. 



THE PROMISED LAND. 



73 



mown all the works of the Lord that He had done for Israel 
They had known the works of the Lord, and they believed ; 
and they were the children of faithful Abraham. And to 
them the dying Joshua could thus make his last appeal : 
" Behold, this day I am going the way of all the earth : and 
ye know in all your hearts, and in all your souls, that not 
one thing hath failed of all the good things which the Lord 
your God spake concerning you ; all are come to pass unto 
you, and not one thing hath failed thereof."t There was no 
restriction on them as to the land, save that which was re- 
served by a brotherly covenant. The tribes of Reuben and 
Gad might have fed their flocks in peace, had their number 
permitted, on the banks of the Jordan on one side, and of 
the Euphrates on the other. Neither had the rest of the 
tribes reached their bounds. Their enemies, wherever they 
went, had been driven out before them ; they had entered 
into the possession of all that they had sought to occupy — 
of a land wherein they did eat bread without scarceness, and 
lacked not anything in it. The Lord was not slack con- 
cerning his promise, which had been fulfilled unto the utter- 
most ; and instead of there being any limit to their land, till 
its appointed borders should be reached, they had been al- 
ready charged by Joshua with being slack to go to possess 
the land which the Lord their God had given them.% They 
were, indeed, to drive out their enemies, and to possess the 
land by little and little, lest the wild beasts should multiply 
among them. But free as it then was for their possession, 
the slackness was on their part alone ; for God was not then, 
as He shall not be at the last, slack concerning his promise, 
as some men count slackness.^ And large regions within the 
range of Israel's inheritance which yet remained to be pos- 
sessed, were allocated amomg them, as if they had been ac- 
tually held in free tenure by a people faithful to their God. 
Yet they gave not heed to the charge and command of Josh- 
ua, to go in and possess the land that remained ; and, be- 
cause of a broken law, no other generation could, under the 
covenant which the Lord made with their fathers when He 
brought them out of Egypt. 

In the same breath with which the dying Joshua set forth 
the unfailing goodness of their God towards them, and his 
faithfulness in his covenant, he warned them to take good 

* Josh., xxiv., 31. t Ibid., xxi., 45 ; xxiii., 14. 

$ Ibid., xviii., 3. ^2 Peter, iii., 9. 

G 



74 



THE BOUNDARIES OF 



heed unto themselves that they loved the Lord their God, 
else, as he said, "If ye do in any wise go back, and cleave 
unto the remnant of these nations, know for a certainty that 
the Lord your God will no more drive out any of these na- 
tions f?-om hefore you ; but they shall be snares and traps unto 
vou, and scourges in your sides, and thorns in your eyes, 
until ye perish from off this good land which the Lord your 
God hath given you. Therefore it shall come to pass, that 
as all good things are come upon you which the Lord your 
God promised you, so shall the Lord bring upon you all evil 
things, until He have destroyed you from off this good land 
which the Lord your God hath given you.'"* 

Whether Israel under the law should keep or hold in full 
possession, even for once, all the land, soon ceased to be 
doubtful. And the fact is most clear, that except for a 
small strip along the seashore, from Ascalon to Acre, the 
land peopled wholly by Israelites nowhere reached near to 
any of the borders which God in his bounty had assigned 
them, concerning which it is not yet to be forgotten, as 
often repeated in Scripture, that the Lord has lifted up his 
hand. 

Even the next generation of the children of Israel knew 
not the Lord as their fathers had done, but did evil in his 
sight, and served Baal and Ashtaroth. The Lord, because 
of their iniquities, instead of subduing any more of the land 
before them, sold them into the hands of their enemies round 
about ; and his hand was against them for evil, as He had 
sworn unto them. But they continued to multiply trans- 
gressions before him, and corrupted their ways in following 
other gods to serve them, and to bow down unto them.f 
They ceased not from their evil doings, nor from their stub- 
born way ; so that the second chapter of Scripture, after that 
which records the death of Joshua, is not closed till we 
read that " the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel ; 
and he said, Because this people hath transgressed 

MY covenant which I COMMANDED THEIR FATHERS, AND 
have not hearkened UNTO MY VOICE, I ALSO WILL NOT 
HENCEFORTH DRIVE OUT ANY FROM BEFORE THEM OF THE 
NATIONS WHICH JoSHUA LEFT WHEN HE DIED ; that through 

them I may prove Israel, whether they will keep the loay of 
the Lord to walk therein, as their fathers did keep it, or not. 
Therefore the Lord left those nations, loithout driving them 

* Josh., xxiiii, 11-15*. t Judges, ii., 11-14. 



THE PROMISED LAND. 



75 



out hastily ; neither delivered He them into the hand of 
Joshua.''^* 

Transgressions were multiplied in Israel ; false gods 
were followed and served ; and when the people did not 
cease from their evil doings and from their stubborn way, 
the promised blessings ceased ; the threatened curses took 
effect ; the progress of the Israelites in the land of promise 
was arrested ; however much of it remained to be possess- 
ed, it was to continue unoccupied by them ; and however 
many enemies remained within the proper borders of a 
faithful people, a faithless race were not to dispossess any 
of them, but they were left by the Lord for the trial and the 
punishment of those, before whom, if faithful, they would 
have fled with terror. Under the curse of a broken cove- 
nant, that soon pressed heavily on Israel, and from which 
it never has recovered, the sentence came forth, that though 
finally they themselves should all be rooted out of every 
part of it, the Lord would 710 more drive out any of those 
nations before them, whose land previously they had only 
to " go in and possess." 

It is not on any human authority, nor even on any direct 
inference from Scripture, but on a word which, when con- 
sidered, carries conviction to every believing" mind — even 
the word of the Lord — that we plainly learn that the limited 
region occupied by Israel in the last days of Joshua, as thus 
also in after ages, was very far from reaching the borders 
of the large inheritance which He had originally marked 
out, and has still in reserve for Israel. 

" Now Joshua was old and stricken in years, and the 
Lord said unto him, Thou art old and stricken in years, and 
there remaineth yet very much land to he possessed. All the 
borders of the Philistines, and all Geshuri ; and from the 
south, all the land of the Canaanites — all the land of the 
Giblites, and all Lebanon, from Baal-gad to the entering 
into Hamath ; all the inhabitants of the hill-country, from 
Lebanon, and all the Sidonians,"f &c. These were num- 
bered among the nations which were greater and mightier 
than the Israelites ; and the countries which they possessed 
formed, as will afterward be seen, extensive regions. But 
the undoubted facts that very much land then remained to be 
possessed, and that the Lord would not drive out any of 
these nations from before them, which Joshua left when he 

* Judges, ii., 20-23. 1 Joshua, xiii., 1, &c. See above, p. 65. 



76 



THE BOUNDARIES OP 



died, might lead the believer to look for the borders of the 
covenanted inheritance far beyond the bounds that Israel 
occupied of old, rather than to limit it to them. 

It is, therefore, rather to be unmindful of the covenant 
itself, than to bear it in remembrance, to deny their proper 
place, as their names and the definition of their locality 
bear, to the prescribed borders, because a people whom 
their iniquities, according to the w^ord of the I^ord, ex- 
cluded from the actual possession of them, could not rank 
them as their owh. Yet all in general that is said in works 
on Scripture geography, of divers of these places, as Bero- 
thah, Hazar-enan, Hethlon, &c., is, that they were towns on 
the northern border of Israel. The River of Egypt, in or- 
der to bring it nearer to Judea, has been placed in the land 
of Philistia ; the entrance into Hamaih to the south both of 
Lebanon and Sidon ; and Emath itself, where no city of the 
name, so far as can be known, ever stood, has been placed, 
as in the map of Cellarius, close by Dan, as being on the 
northern border of Israel ; and not a few Christian writers 
of high name have discarded as incredible the covenanted 
borders of Israel, as believed in by the Jews themselves, 
the heirs of the covenant, because these assign to the true 
heritage of Jacob ampler borders than those which hemmed 
in their faithless ancestors. 

In entering more fully on a theme which thus stands so 
obviously in need of elucidation, some degree of minute, or 
even tedious detail, may not be altogether inexcusable. 
The " goodly" land of Israel has been blasphemed or 
spoken against ; and its presumed diminutive size has also 
given rise to the taunting blasphemy, that " the God of 
Israel was a little god, because he gave to his people but a 
little land." A land full of judgments might put scoffers to 
silence. But it is right that falsehood should be confronted 
and confuted by truth, and that the word of God should be 
vindicated, as it declares that the land given by covenant to 
Israel is both large and good, especially where Christian 
writers have unwittingly given a seeming sanction to the 
impious sarcasm. More than at other times, or than in 
past ages, the subject seems now to demand investigation, 
and may well excite attention, when the possession of 
Syria by one people or another is a question among others 
than the chief potentates of Europe, and when many Chris- 
tians are thinking, who thought it not before, that the land 



THE PROMISED LAND. 



77 



of Israel shall yet be Israel's own. Among the Gentiles, 
eyes keen and quicksighted as the wolf's are looking on 
the various provinces of the Turkish Empire ; and among 
those who are " not numbered among the nations," eyes 
beaming like the exile's as he looks towards his home, 
while the days of his expatriation and imprisonment are in 
his fond hope expiring, are looking wistfully to the promised 
inheritance of Jacob's seed. Alas ! that they should yet 
stream anew with bitter tears, even though they were re- 
turned to it again, till they look on him lohom they have 
pierced, and tears of penitence, and faith, and love be inter- 
mingled, and a broken law be no longer a barrier to the 
completion of all the covenanted blessings still in store for 
faithful Israel. Yet, in blissful anticipation of that time, the 
word of the Lord, as written ybr a time to come, and never 
yet fully realized, may guide our way to the various bounds 
He has set, irremovable by man, around the decreed " heri- 
tage of Jacob." 

If we look to the kingdom of Israel when it attained to 
its highest glory in ancient times, in the days of David and 
Solomon, the fact presents itself to view, that the land oj 
Israel, as peopled by the seed of Jacob, was far from being 
commensurate with the promised inheritance, within the 
bounds of which other nations still remained. The very 
conquests of David give proof how numerous and powerful 
these were. But the Philistines, and other enemies of Is- 
rael, held possession of their own territories, which were 
expressly, and by name, included in the covenant, as given 
by the Lord to Israel. Two or three verses need but to be 
read, to prove beyond contradiction — except Scripture be 
contradicted — that the conditional promises of the covenant 
made with the Israelites failed because of their unfaithful- 
ness, and that at no time, not even when Solomon's king- 
dom was in its highest glory, were these promises comple- 
ted. " I will send an angel before thee ; and I will drive 
out the Canaanite, the Amorite, and the Hittite, and the 
Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite,"* &c. " Observe 
thou that which I command thee this day : behold, I drive 
out before thee the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the 
Hittite,"t &c. " There shall no man be able to stand be- 
fore thee, until thou have destroyed them. "J Yet of these 
very nations we read again, " All the people that were left 

* Exod,, xxxiii., 2. t Ibid., xxxiv,, 11. t Deut., vii., 24 

G 2 



78 



THE BOUNDARIES OP 



of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, 
which were not of the children of Israel, their children 
that were left after them in the land, whom the children of 
Israel also were not able utterly to destroy, upon these did Sol- 
omon levy a tribute."* 

Solomon's reign, compared to others, was peaceful. " Ju- 
dah and Israel dwelt safely from Dan even to Beersheba, 
all the days of Solomon."! But these were still the limits 
of the land, within which thev dwelt as their own. The 
sceptre was swayed from the throne in Jerusalem over all 
Israel only during these two reigns. But a king did not 
reign in righteousness then. David transgressed, and 
brought a pestilence on the land. He sinned yet more, and 
for a season was a fugitive from his capital. Solomon's 
heart was turned from the God of Israel, and the Lord was 
angry with him. He raised up adversaries to Solomon — 
Hadad the Edomite, and Rezon, who reigned in Damascus, 
and was an adversary to Israel all the days of Solomon. 
And even Jeroboam, Solomon's servant, lifted up his hand 
against the king ; and to him the kingdom of Israel was 
given, when, according to the word of the Lord, it was rent 
out of the hand of Solomon's son, J 

But the law was the shadow of good things to come, 
though not the very substance of the things. And the 
kingdom of Israel in its ancient glory was a shadow of the 
kingdom yet to be restored to Israel, when, as assuredly as 
the covenant with the Israelites was broken, and its curses 
came upon them, the covenant with Abraham shall be ful- 
filled, and its blessings, in lighting upon Israel at last, shall 
be spread throughout the world. Though the nations which 
remained within the bounds of Israel's promised inheritance 
were never driven beyond them, nor utterly destroyed by 
the Israelites, yet the shadow of the kingdom of Israel, as 
that kingdom shall be finally restored, reached to the ut- 
most borders of the land from the high throne of the house 
of David, which was set up in Jerusalem. " Glorious 
things" are written of that city which comport not at all 
with any more straitened borders than the God of Jerusa- 
lem has assigned. When that throne was first established, 
which the Lord, according to his covenant with David, 
shall build up to all generations, and when the ark of the 



■* 1 Kings, ix., 20, 21. 

i Ibid., xi., 9, 12, 14, 23, 26, 



t Ibid., iv., 25. 
i) Heb., X., I. , 



THE PROMISED LAND. 



79 



covenant was set up in Jerusalem, David smote the Philis- 
tines and subdued them ;* he smote the Moabites, and tliey 
became David's servants ; he smote also Hadad-ezer, the 
son of Rehob, king of Zobah, as he went to recover his bor- 
der at the River Euphrates.^ He smote the Syrians, and 
he put garrisons in Syria of Damascus ; he took the shields 
of gold that were on the servants of Hadad-ezer, and brought 
them to Jerusalem, and from Betah and from Berothai, cities 
of Hadad-ezer, King David took exceeding much brass. J 
Toi, king of Hamath, sent his son to salute him and to bless 
him, and he brought with him vessels of silver, and gold, 
and brass. These and the spoils of Syria and of Moab, of 
Ammon, of the Philistines, of Amalek, and of the King of 
Zobah, he dedicated to the Lord.^ Throughout all Edom 
he put garrisons, and all they of Edom became David's ser- 
vants. || When the various nations were subdued, or owned 
his supremacy, the scriptural record immediately after bears, 
" So David reigned over all Israel, and executed judgment 
and justice in all his dominion." Other nations than the 
seed of Jacob dwelt within his borders. Though very much 
land remained to be possessed as in the days of Joshua, 
countries which Israel did not fully possess or people, and 
from which their enemies were never driven out, owned the 
supreme sovereignty of David, and did him homage. And 
though the Euphrates watered not the land of Israel, but 
the kingdojn of Hadad-ezer, that great river was the border 
of David's dominion. 

So was it also with Solomon. The twelve tribes united 
under him were but one people in the midst of many. His 
kingdom, like that of his father David, extended far beyond 
the land actually occupied and possessed by the Israelites ; 
and he exercised a nominal or real sovereignty over all the 
regions which the Lord had given to the seed of Jacob. 
Solomon reigned over all the kings from the Euphrates unto 
the land of the Philistines, and to the border of Egypt ; they 
brought presents, and served Solomon all the days of his 
life. He had dominion over all the region on this side the 
River Euphrates, from Tipzah unto Azzah, over all the kings 
on this side of the river. ^ Solomon went to Hamath-Zobah 

* 2 Sam., v., 17-25 ; viii., 1. 1 Chron., x\iii., 1. 

t 2 Sam., riii., 2, 3. 1 Chron., xviii., 3. 

X 2 Sam., viii., 5-8. 1 Chron., xviii., 5-8. 

^ 2 Sam., \iii., 11. 1 Chron., xviii., 9-13. 

II 2 Sam., viii., 14. 1 Chron., xviii., 13. 

IT 1 Kings, iv., 21-24. 2 Cliron., ix., 26, 



80 



THE BOUNDARIES OF 



and prevailed against it. And he built Tadmor in the wil- 
derness, and Hamath, and all the store-cities which he built 
in Hamath, and in Lebanon, and throughout all the land of 
his dominion* He made a navy of ships in Ezion-gaber, 
which is beside Eloth, on the shore of the Red Sea, in the 
land of Edom.t And he laid a tribute of bond-service upon 
the children of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, 
and Jebusites, which were left in the land, whom, as em- 
phatically stated, the children of Israel were not able utter- 
ly to destroy.:}: 

But neither in the reign of David nor Solomon were their 
enemies driven out before the children of Israel, whose 
proper bounds were still the same as at the time of the death 
of Joshua. For when the fullest limits recorded in scrip- 
tural history were assigned to the kingdom over which these 
monarchs reigned, it is added, as descriptive even of the 
farther glory of Solomon's reign, and Judah and Israel 
dwelt safely, every man under his vine and under his fig- 
tree, yrom Dan even to Beersheha, all the days of Solomon. 

The extent of the covenanted inheritance may therefore 
be seen, not in the land of Israel old, but in the dominion 
of Solomon, including all the lands of tributary kings, from 
the land of Hamath, its king in the number, to the shores of 
the Red Sea, and from the border of Egypt to the Euphra- 
tes, including all the kings on the west side of that river. 
But the borders of Judah and Israel, viz., Dan and Beer- 
sheha, within which the children of Israel dwelt in safety, 
were not the borders of Solomon's dominion, and no more 
are they the borders of Israel's decreed and destined inher- 
itance. The terms of the Abrahamic covenant rise far 
higher than the record of Solomon's reign. In them there 
is no word of nations that should not be driven out, nor of 
any other kingdom than that of Israel alone, from the River 
of Egypt to the River Euphrates. But the sovereignty 
Avhich he exercised over all the kingdoms of his dominion, 
reaching to the heaven-appointed borders, give a practical 
illustration of the extent of the inheritance of Israel, when- 
ever, in the completion of the covenant, all these countries 
shall be the land of their possession. David and Solomon 
acknowledged no other " borders" than the border of Egypt, 
the Euphrates, the Red Sea, and Hamath : and none who 



* 2 Cliroii., viii., 3-6. t 1 Kings, ix., 26. 2 Chron., viii., 17. 

$ 1 Kings, ix,, 21. 2 Chron., viii., 7, 8. M Kings, iv., 25. 



THE PROMISED LAND. 



81 



look as they did to the covenant of the Lord with Abraham, 
and Isaac, and Jacob, can acknowledge limits more circum- 
scribed. And the spirit of faith breaks through the bonds 
with which a false theory concerning the limits of Israel 
has fettered inquiry, and gives full freedom to read the 
words as they are written, and to seek the " borders" where 
they are to be found, in the utmost bounds of Solomon's do- 
minion. 

At no other time did the Israelites so fully possess their 
promised inheritance as in the days of Solomon. After his 
death the glory of Israel was greatly diminished, and the 
kingdom was rent in twain. The seed of Jacob, a divided 
and often mutually conflicting people, did cleave to the rem- 
nant of the nations that were left around them, and forsook 
the Lord God of their fathers. Ephraim vexed Judah, and 
Judah Ephraim. The tide of conquest, renewed by David, 
was turned back, and never rose so high again. The ene- 
mies of Israel prevailed. The inheritance which the Lord 
had given them, they lost. Ephraim was given up to his 
idols, and fell in his iniquity. Ten tribes were destroyed 
from oflf the land of Israel, and their place was occupied by 
aliens from their commonwealth. Judah never regained 
what Ephraim had lost. And for the perfect completion of 
the covenant of God with their fathers, in respect to the ex- 
tent as well as the perpetuity of the promised inheritance, 
we must look to the days when " Judah and Ephraim shall 
be one in the hands of the Lord," and when, according to 
the new division of the land, as defined by Ezekiel, the 
twelve tribes of Israel, one as well as another, shall inherit 
the land,* from the River of Egypt to the great River Eu-^ 
phrates 

SECTION II. 

THE RIVER OF EGYPT. 

The River of Egypt, from which to the Euphrates the 
inheritance of Israel extends, might at once and univer- 
sally, without an explanatory word, be identified with 
the Nile, which is emphatically and exclusively, as 
known to all the world, the River of Egypt. But because 
the Holy Land, as possessed by the Israelites in ancient 
times, never reached to Egypt, and the Nile never form* 

=^ Ezek., xlvii., 13, 14. 



82 



THE BOUNDARIES OP 



ed its boundary, the brook Besor, in the land of Philistia, 
a mere streamlet compared to the Nile, and sometimes 
nearly, if not altogether dry in summer, without being 
transported to its borders, has been exalted into the Rive?' 
of Egypt. If the terms of the covenant be not altogether 
disregarded, such an opinion is unworthy of confutation, 
as a brook, were it even worthy of being the boundary 
of a large kingdom, cannot, while flowing only in one 
country, be the river of another which it never reaches. 

The translation of the term JVakal Mitzraim (o''T2^D 
bnJ) in a single instance in the Septuagint, into Rhino- 
corura (VuvoKopovpog)^ seemed to give warrant for the 
opinion to which it gave rise, that a river or stream 
near the town of that name was the River of Egypt, This 
opinion was ably controverted and refuted by Dr. Shaw, 
who states that, " in geographical criticism, little stress 
can be laid on the authority of the Septuagint version, 
where the phrase so frequently, as he shows, varies from 
the original, and where so many different interpretations 
are put upon one and the same thing."* 

Pelusium, situated on the banks of the eastern branch 
of the Nile, formed the extreme boundary of Egypt on 
the coast of the Mediterranean, and the region between 
it and the Red Sea pertained, as Strabo relates, not to 
Egypt, but to Arabia. f But, as the covenant concern- 
ing the land has evidently respect to the latter days, 
even as the inheritance is declared to be an everlastinof 
possession, the fatal objection against Rhinocorura is that 
there is no stream, or river, or torrent there, that could 
in any way form as a river the boundary of a kingdom. 
Amid sandy hills all around, there is indeed something 
like the form of a valley close upon the sea, wide enough 
for a large river, but, in the summer at least, as the 
writer witnessed in passing it, there was no stream, or 
even streamlet, or drop of water there ; and the ground, 
nearly on the level with the seashore, was as dry as the 
parched wilderness. The River of Egypt, as a border 
of the large dominion forming the everlasting inheritance 
of Israel, is not surely such as cannot be seen. The 
country around Rhinocorura is as it was in the days of 

* Shaw's Travels, Supplement, p. 23, 24. See APPENPIX I. 
t StrabOj cap. 17, torn, ii,, p. 1138, ed. Falcon. 



THE PROMISED LAND. 



83 



Diodorus Siculus, Herodotus, and Strabo, as their au- 
thorities are adduced on this very point by Dr. Shaw, a 
barren country deprived of the necessaries of life ; with- 
out the walls there are several salt-pits ] within, the wells 
yield only a bitter, corrupted water. Herodotus con- 
firms this account by telling us that in those deserts 
there was a dreadful v/ant of water to the distance of 
three days' journey from Mount Casius, bordering on 
Egypt, on the Sirbonic Lake. Strabo relates that the 
whole country between Gaza and the Sirbonic Lake was 
barren or sandy. There was no " River of Egypt" there 
either in ancient or modern times. The writer has not 
been able to discover any mention of it as a stream or 
streamlet (though such in winter there possibly may be) 
by any modern or ancient author, though it has been so 
placed in many maps. 

The River of Egypt is doubtless the JV\7e, to which 
the J^ahal Mitzraim of the Hebrews seems to have oriven 
its name. From it, in the estimation of the learned 
Bochart, that name by which the River of Egypt is uni- 
versally known, was " most certainly derived."* For 
Jfahal the Jewish interpreters read the Nile. 

The River of Egypt bears, in parallel passages of Scrip- 
ture, the name of Si/ior, which is plainly identified with 
the Nile. Like other names given to that river by va- 
rious nations, who, according to Dr. Hales and many 
other authors, have translated it into their own lan- 
guages, it literally signifies " black." These are too nu- 
merous to owe their origin to any other than a common 
cause, which gave in them all its significancy to each 
name of the selfsame river. According to Pliny, Soli- 
nus, and Dionysius, the Nile was called Siris, " its Ethi- 
opic narne derived from Sihor or Sihr.^^ The words 
Melas and Melo^ like the Hebrew Sihor, also literally 
signifying "black," were among the Greeks names of 
the Nile. The Egyptian name of the river, according 
to Diodorus, was Okeames, from Okema, or Okem, signi- 
fying " black," whence also it was styled by the Hindus 
" Cali,^^ all names of the same import. f 

* Nahal torrens pro Nilo accipitur, ut in scriptura passim. Num., xxxiv., 5, 
pro Hebraeo Nahal, 4n3» legitur Nilus QlS^J in Jonathane et Jerosolymitano 
interprete, atque hinc Nili nomiqis ovigo certissima est. — Bochart, iii., 764. 

t Shaw's Trav., ibid-, p. 31, Ilales's Chronologj-, vol. i., p. 413, 414. 



84 THE BOUNDARIES OF 

Thus the name given in Scripture to the bounding 
river of Israel's inheritance on the side of Egypt is sim- 
ilar in sound and in significancy to Sihr^ the Ethiopian 
name of the Nile, and is precisely of the same import 
with the names which it bears in other languages. The 
name is specially appropriate to the Nile, loaded as it is 
with the dark loam of Abyssinia and Upper Egypt, and 
flowing for hundreds of miles through its own dark de- 
posites, with which, as in the days of Virgil and in earli- 
er times, it fertilizes the land in annual overflow. 

Viridem Eg}'ptuin nigra fcECundat arena. 

Its dark and muddy waters, though sweet to the taste, 
need first to be filtered, and leave a large dark sediment. 
The name of Sihor is most appropriate to the Nile ; but, 
having passed by both, the writer may remark, that it 
would but ill apply to a river of Rhinocorura, were there 
a river there ; for the sandy hills around it, and bound- 
less sandy plains joining the desert, might so filter any 
stream, or purify even the Nile itself, as to rob it of all 
title to this scriptural name. 

The Nile, forming emphatically, and, it may well be 
said, exclusively, " the River of Egypf — the name by 
which it is now universally known being most certainly, 
on high authority, derived from the very word which is 
translated in our own version the river or stream of 
Egypt — the eastern branch of the Nile having been the 
boundary of that country, according to Strabo, who is 
second, in accuracy at least, to none of the ancient ge- 
ographers, and its dark waters having given it the name 
which it bears in Scripture, in exact analogy to other 
appellations by which it was known in their own tongue 
to various heathen nations, strong and conclusive proof 
may hence arise that the River of Egypt " could be none 
other than the Nile." The fact, too, that " none of the 
old geographers — Strabo, Mela, Pliny, Ptolemy, &c. — 
notice any stream or torrent at Rhinocorura," and no 
river, or, in summer at least, not even the smallest 
streamlet now existing there, it is left without an actual 
competitor. And yet the proofs and authorities are not 
exhausted, that the River of Egypt is the Nile, even as 
assuredly as the Nile is the River of Egypt. 

That the Sihor, as Gesenius states,* is " necessarily" 

* Apud vocem. 



THE PROMISED LAND. 



85 



the Nile, is farther evident from other passages of Scrip- 
ture. In describing the commerce of Tyre, the mart of 
nations, Isaiah records, in terms applicable to the Nile 
alone, that " by great waters the seed of Sihor, the har- 
vest of the river (or, as translated in the Vulgate, the 
J^ile) is her revenues."* That river is alike pointedly 
referred to by Jeremiah, as the Lord did plead with Is- 
rael concerning the judgments brought on them for their 
iniquities. " Is Israel a home-born slave 1 The children 
of Noph (Memphis, on the banks of the JVz7e) and Ta- 
haphanes have broken the crown of thy head. And now 
what hast thou to do in the way of Egypt^ to drink the 
waters of Sihor ? or what hast thou to do in the way of 
Assyria, to drink the waters of the river V'f Associated 
as Egypt thus repeatedly is with its river, or the Sihor, 
and Assyria with its river, or the Euphrates, there seems 
no room for doubt, that as the Euphrates is the River 
of Assyria, so the Nile is the River of Egypt. 

The same identical word is descriptive of them both 
in the original covenant, as the promise was made to 
Abraham, Gen., xv., 18. The word translated river is 
not, as in other passages, J^ahal^ but JVekar, or J^ehar- 
Mitzraim^ the River of Egypt ; even as in the same pas- 
sage Js^ehar Phraat is the River Euphrates. The same 
word, too, in the plural number, is applied undoubtedly 
to the separate branches of the Nile (forming rivers^ 
though divided) in a passage that cannot possibly apply 
to any other river, Exod., vii., 19 : " And the Lord spake 
unto Moses, say unto Aaron, Stretch forth thy hand 
with thy rod, over the streams, over the rivers (ne/iarim), 
and over the ponds, and cause frogs to come up upon 
the land of Egypt." 

It may here be remarked, though anticipating another 
branch of the subject, that the boundaries of Israel thus 
approach as closely on the one side to Egypt, as to 
Assyria on the other, as if preparation had thus been 
made from the beginning for the completion of the 
farther promise, that the Egyptians shall serve with the 
Assyrians, when these nations shall be joined, though in 
subserviency, to Israel, " whom the Lord of Hosts shall 
bless, saying, Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria 
the work of my hands, and Israel mine inheritance.":}: 

* Isa., xxiii., 3. t Jer., ii., 14-18. t Isa., xix., 23-25. 



86 



THE BOUNDARIES OP 



" The River of Egypt," says Dr. Hales, " which is con- 
trasted with the River Euphrates, must also be a ' great 
river,' and a marked boundary about which there could be 
no dispute ; and this was no other than the Nile, whose 
eastern or Pelusian branch was reckoned the boundary 
of Egypt."* 

It may be presumed that the other boundaries, as 
set by a divine hand, and engrossed in the covenant, 
are also marked, that ultimately, whatever discrepancy 
of opinion may have heretofore existed, there shall be no 
doubt or dispute concerning them on any side. Look- 
ing to the scriptural definition of the borders, which 
alone can prescribe the extent of the promised inherit- 
ance, ample proof, if the author errs not, may be ad- 
duced to show that the heritage of Jacob, however vast 
its range, is everywhere encompassed by marked un- 
questionable bounds. 

In order to this proof, and to clear our way to attain 
it, it is needful to protest in every instance against the 
idea that the fraction of the land occupied by the Israel- 
ites of old comprehends the full limits of the " ever- 
lasting possession" of a people whom the Lord will bless 
in the full and final comoletion of all his promises, 

SECTION III. 

THE WEST AND NORTH BORDERS. 

The WESTERN BORDER is as defined as are the shores 
of the Mediterranean from the River of Egypt to the 
north side of the promised land. In the definition of 
the borders of the tribes who had not received their por- 
tion on the east side of the Jordan, it is said, "As for 
the western border, ye shall even have the great sea for 
a border ; this shall be your west border. "f It thus ex- 
tends along the Mediterranean shore, from the River of 
Egypt to the entrance into Hamath^ which both rank as 
borders in the same chapter. In defining the general 
boundary of all the tribes, when they shall all finally in- 
herit the land, Ezekiel, speaking by the same Spirit, 
says, " The west side shall also be the great sea, from 
the border till a man come over against Hamath. This is 
the west side.''^X " The border of the land towards the north 

* Hales's Chron., vol. i., p. 413. t Nui^.., xxxiv., 6, t Ezejc., xlvii., 20, 



THE PROMISED LAND. 



87 



Side is from the great From the border— on the 

Kiver of Egypt, as previously stated, which formed it — 
the western border extends till its termination along" 
the shores of the Mediterranean, and thus leaves no 
place on its coast, from south to north, in all the inter- 
mediate distance, that does not pertain to Israel. 

The definitions of the north border, which fixes the 
termination of the western, demand special regard. 

" This shall be your north border. From the great 
sea ye shall point out unto you Mount Hor ; from Mount 
Hor ye shall point out your border unto the entrance of 
Hamath j and the goings forth of the border shall be to 
Zedad ; and the border shall go on to Ziphron, and the 
goings out of it shall be at Hazar-enan , this shall be 
your north border: and ye shall point out your east bor- 
der from Hazar-enan to Shephan j and the coast shall 
go down from Shephan to Riblah, on the east side of 
Ain ; and the border shall descend,"! &c. " This shall 
be the border of the land towards the north side, from 
the great sea, the way of Hethlon, as men go to Zedad, 
Hamath, Berothah, Sibraim, which is between the bor- 
der of Damascus and the border of Hamath; Hazar- 
hatticon, which is by the coast of Hauran. And the 
border from the east shall be Hazar-enan, the border of 
Damascus, and the north northward^ and the border of 
Hamath. And this is the north side. "J " From the 
north end to the coast of the way of Hethlon, as one 
goeth to Hamath, Hazar-enan, the border of Damascus 
northward, to the coast of Hamath : for these are his 
sides east and west, a portion of Dan."§ Of the land 
that remained to be possessed at the death of Joshua, 
peopled by the nations that were not driven out of the 
promised land, these were included: " from the south all 
the land of the Canaanites^ and Mearah, that is beside 
the Sidonians ; and the land of the Giblites, and all Leba^ 
non towards the sun-rising, from Baal-gad unto Mount 
Hermon, unto the entering into Hamath^ all the inhabitants 
of the hill-country, from Lebanon unto Misrephoth-maim, 
and all the Sido?iians.''^\\ 

Clear as these scriptural definitions are, yet on the 



* Ezek., xlvii., 15. Num., xxxiv., 7-11. 

^ Ezek., xlvii,, 15-17. ^ Ibid., xlviii., 1. 



t Num., xxxiv., 7-11. 
II Joshua, xiii., 4 6, 



88 



THE BOUNDARIES OF 



same principle — that the borders of ancient Israel were 
identical with those of the covenanted land — the valley 
of the Kasimiyeh, or Leontes, near to Tyre, and over 
against Dan, has, from its vicinity to that city, been 
generally deemed the entrance into Hamath. The care- 
ful perusal of these texts, with a glance at the map, may 
show at once that the north border of the promised land 
cannot possibly be there. Such an entrance into Ha- 
math from the sea would exclude, instead of including, 
at least all the Sidonians, all Lebanon^ all the hill-country 
from Lebanon, all the land of the Giblites, all the kingdom 
of Damascus, and all the land of Hamath ; and would leave 
forever the north border of the land what it was in the 
days of Joshua. But ve7'y much land, as the names of 
these regions suffice to indicate, remained to be possessed ; 
and the proof is plain, that the north end of the inherit- 
ance of Israel was very far from the mouth of the Leon- 
tes. The great sea, or the Mediterranean, is the border, 
till a man come over against Hamath; but coming thus 
from the south along its shores, when the Leontes is 
touched, no part of Lebanon is reached, instead of it all 
being passed ; and instead of a man being there op- 
posite to Hamath, a journey from thence of about forty 
miles lies between him and Beyrout, that is opposite to 
Damascus, which city, in difference of latitude alone, is 
more than a hundred miles south of Hamath ; while the al- 
lotted territory of a whole tribe of Israel lies beyond the 
border of Damascus northward, and has first to be passed 
through before the entrance into Hamath can be reached. 

Instead, therefore, of looking for the real north bor- 
der of Israel's destined inheritance in the latitude of Dan 
— which formed, indeed, the bounds of the limited ter- 
ritory possessed by the seed of Jacob in the days of 
Joshua, as in after ages — the word of the Lord which 
came unto him teaches us first to pass over much land 
from the south, and tells us the very regions which have 
to be traversed from thence before the north border has 
even to be sought for, or can anywhere be found. 

jIU the Sidonians, no mean people, whose land lay 
along the seashore and the southwestern part of the 
mountains of Lebanon, occupied no diminutive space. 
Lebanon is an extensive mountainous range, which 
stretches to the north of the embouchure of the Leontqs 



THE PROMISED LAND. 



89 



at least a hundred and twenty miles, or, according to Dio- 
dorus Siculus, till it reaches the mountains of Cilicia or the 
mouth of the Orontes. But besides Lebanon, strictly so 
called, Israel's unoccupied territory included all the hill- 
country from it to Mizrephoth-maim, which, by seemingly 
another ample space, extends the land in a mountainous 
country beyond the bounds of Lebanon. All the land of the 
Canaanites, and of the Giblites, expressly mentioned among 
the regions that remained to be possessed after the borders 
of Israel reached the Leontes, have yet to take their place 
— though, like others, for the first time — within the inherit- 
ance of the Israelites, as the land of their possession. And 
of them we may still more definitely speak. 

Gahala, mentioned by Ptolemy (Gebal of the Greeks), 
was one of the maritime towns of Phoenicia, between Ara- 
dus and Laodicea. In his account of the Arvadiles, as one 
of the families of the Canaanites, Bochart, unbiased by any 
opposing theory on another theme than the borders of Isra- 
el, states that Gabala was probably Gebal mentioned in 
Ezekiel's description of the greatness of Tyre. Gebal 
seems plainly to announce itself as the capital of the Gib- 
lites, concerning which there seems not to be a question ; 
and Bochart is free to testify that Gebala is probably the 
Gebal of Scripture. The English translation has retained, 
Avith obvious propriety, the original Hebrew word. But as 
the River of Egypt was transformed, rather than translated, 
into Rhinocorura, the Septuagint has changed Gebal into 
Byblus, and the Giblites into Bublioi {Bv6Xloi). Byblus 
otherwise bears the names of Esbeli, Gibyle, or Jebeil ; and 
it is said by Maundrel and others — following the Septua- 
gint, from which he quotes* — to be probably the country of 
the Giblites, though, as Pococke states, " the names Gib- 
lites and Gebal, according to our literal translation from the 
Hebrew, would incline to think that Gabala, north of Ortho- 
sia, was meant."! Gebal or Gabala, now Jebilee or Gibili,:|: 
has uniformly borne from ancient to modern times the same 
nam.e (the locality being precisely the same), so slightly 
changed as not to admit of a doubt as to its identity. 

Even if Byblus, or Jebeil, v/as the chief city of the Gib- 
lites, whose land lies within the inheritance of Israel, that 
fact alone annihilates the assumption that the valley of the 

* Maundrel's Trav., p. 45. t Pococke's Descrip. of the East, p. 98. 

t Map in G. Robinson's Trav. in Syria. 

H2 



90 



THE BOUNDARIES OP 



Leontes is " the entrance into Hamath," or " the north end" 
of the promised heritage ; for even Byblus is above seventy 
miles north of the entrance of that river into the sea, and 
therefore as far beyond the ancient northern border of 
Israel. 

But not only is it " probable that Gabala was the ancient 
Gebal," but it is certain that the country of which it was 
the capital lay in the immediate vicinity, if it did not form a 
part, of the land of the Arvadites, one of the families of the 
Canaanites* all whose territories that were unoccupied by 
the Israelites at the death of Joshua were included in the 
land that then remained to he possessed. Not only all the 
Sidonians, who were descended of the first-born of Canaan, 
but ALL the land of the Canaanites^ is expressly named by 
the Lord, and included in the very much land which the Is- 
raelites did not occupy in the days of Joshua, or ever after. 
The Arvadite was one of the families of the Canaanites, as 
much as any other.f Translating literally from Bochart, 
we read that " the Arvadites, or Aradites, occupied the isl- 
and of Aradus on the coast of Phosnicia, and part of the 
neighbouring continent, where are Antaradus, Marathus, 
and Laodicea. Hence the Jerusalem interpreter (or Tar- 
gum of Jerusalem) has for the Arvadites ''^^■T^DJ^^ Antardios^ 
and Jonathan ''s^DCD"'^, corruptly for "'5>sDm'7, i. e., Laodice?ises. 
Near to Laodicea, says Strabo, are Posidium, Heraclium, 
Gehala (Gebal, Ezek., xxvii,, 9) ; then the maritime region 
of the Aradi, Paltus, Balanea, and Caranus, afterward Eny- 
dra and Marathus, an ancient Phoenician city. The famous 
city of Tripoli (three cities), according to Scylax (in Perip- 
lo), Strabo, Diodorus, and Pliny, was built by the Aradi 
(Arvadites), the Tyrians, and Sidonians. "| These cities 
along the Phoenician coast, pertaining to the Arvadites, lead 
us near to its northern termination, or close by the site of 
Mount Casius and the mouth of the Orontes, the position of 
which is marked by these eminent ancient geographers as 
between Laodicea and Seleucia. It is worthy also of re- 
mark, that Gihlites literally mean horderers ; and that the 
land of the Giblites and Canaanites (all included in Israel) 
brings us thus, in passing, according to scriptural guidance, 
along the loestern border, or the great sea, till the entrance 
into Hamath may be sought for, close to the mouth, not of 
the Leontes, but of the Orontes. 

* The Arvadites, Gen., x., 18. t Gen., x., 18. 

X Vide Bochart, Phaleg., p. 305, 306. 



THE PROMISED LAND. 



91 



But other families of the Canaanites dwelt on the coast 
of Phoenicia, to the north of the kingdom of Sidon ; and it 
'may be clearly seen what vast acquisitions beyond all that 
their fathers possessed have to be made by Israel. That 
coast, more than any other on earth, was studded with mag- 
nificent cities ; and there is no portion of it to which their 
scriptural title may not be clearly shown. 

After the death of Joshua, it is recorded that Asher did 
not drive out the inhabitants of Accho (Ptolemais), nor the 
inhabitants of Zidon, &,c., which lay within the lot of that 
tribe, that included also the strong city of Tyre, which, in- 
stead of being possessed by the Israelites as theirs, had its 
own king in the days of Solomon. All the Sidonians were 
included in the land that remained to be possessed ; and the 
unreserved and unrestricted term, " all the land of the Ca- 
naanites," clearly comprehends within Israel's everlasting 
possession all the Canaanitish territory, besides that of the 
Sidonians and all that the Israelites had previously occupi- 
ed. There was no exception of any of the Canaanites, nor 
of a foot-breadth of their land. 

Clear as this fact is, there is as little difficulty or doubt 
in ascertaining that very much land of the Canaanites 
stretched along the Phoenician shore. Sidon, Area, Simyra, 
Arad or Arvad, announce themselves as the respective cap- 
itals of the Sidonians, Arkites, Zemarites, and Arvadites, 
four of the twelve families of the Canaanites ; while Jebilee, 
or Gibili, has ever retained its ancient name as the capital 
of the Giblites. 

From simply reversing the order of the Itinerary of An- 
toninus, corresponding with that of Jerusalem, and introdu- 
cing from Ptolemy's Geography the name of a single city 
(not included in the Itinerary, as it lay five miles to the 
west of the road which it denotes), the reader may perceive 
what light is thrown by heathen records on the position of 
those lands which remain to be possessed. What and how 
extensive they there are, may thus be seen at a glance, the 
distance being marked in Roman miles. 



Sidon to Berytus (Beyrout) 30 

" Byblus 34 

« Tripoli 36 

" (Simyra) 

" Area (from Tripoli) 18 

" Ant- Aradus (Arvad).. 32 

*' Balanea 24 

" Gahala 27 

'* Laodicea 18 



219 



93 



THE BOUNDARIES OP 



Thus from the south much land remained to be possessed, 
and it can only be beyond these regions that the real north- 
ern border lies. They embrace the whole of the Phcenician 
coast to the north of Sidon, from the southern extremity of 
Lebanon to the termination of the Anzeyry Mountains, or all 
Lebanon and the hill-country to the entrance into Hamath, 
which necessarily lies beyond all the land of the Canaanites. 

That the territories of these Canaanitish nations met, 
even where their capitals were farthest separate, may be 
manifest from the facts that the great Sidon, as it is denomi- 
nated by ancient geographers as in Scripture, was situated 
near to the one extremity of Lebanon, and Area on the oth- 
er, and that the Sidonians and Arvadites had each a portion 
of the city of Tripoli. 

The site of Area (of which more in the sequel) is un- 
doubted ; the testimonies of Ptolemy and Antoninus, of Wil- 
lerm, archbishop of Tyre, and of Dr. Shaw and Burckhardt, 
&;c., correspond precisely concerning it. In the Itinerary 
it is placed, as above, at the distance of eighteen miles from 
Tripoli, and by Burckhardt at about five hours and a half, 
which, at the usual rate of three miles an hour, is the same. 
It was a strong and wealthy city at the close of the eleventh 
century, and its inhabitants at first feared not to assault ma- 
rauding crusaders. 

That it was the capital of the Arkites is equally clear. 
According to the tradition of the ancients, Willerm says, it 
was built by Archeus (or Arkeus),the seventh son of Cana- 
an, from which it took its name.* Bochart, in his account 
of the Canaanites, states in positive terms, as beyond ques- 
tion, that the Arkites possessed Arka or Area, a city situa- 
ted in Lebanon, of which mention is made by Ptolemy and 
Josephus. In it, according to Macrobius Sturnal (lib. i., c. 
27), was the temple of Venus Archites.f As Hamath, an- 
other chief city of the Canaanites, owned the sovereignty 
of Solomon, so also, as Josephus testifies, did Area, where 
one of his governors was stationed, who had the seacoast 
about Arce.| Its ruins were visited by Dr. Shaw, who terms 
it the city of the Arkites, the offspring of Canaan ; and he 
mentions, in like manner, Simyra as the seat of the Zema- 
rites.§ 

" All the Sidonians, all the land of the Canaanites and the 

* Will. Tyr., Hist., p. 737. t Boch., Phaleg., p. 305. 

i Josephus, Ant., viii.., 2^ 3. ^ Shaw's Travels, p. 327, edit. Oxford, 1734 



THE PROMISED LAND. 93 

Gibilites" that remained and still remain to be possessed, 
thus occupied successively and conjointly the Syrian and 
Phoenician coast for the space of 2 19 Roman miles, exclusive 
of the land pertaining to these cities that lay to the south of 
Sidon and the north, of Laodicea. 

Instead of limiting the northern border to Dan, the need- 
ful proof may be given, that before reaching the entrance 
into Hamath, or ascending the mountain from whence it has 
first to be seen, much land, as that word came worthily from 
the mouth of the Lord, remained to he possessed. 

Wherever the children of Israel entered the land of their 
enemies to keep it as their own, they changed the names 
of the cities. But all these names remaining unchanged de- 
clared at once their Canaanitish origin, and that the time is 
yet to come when all these lands shall actually form a por- 
tion of the inheritance of Israel. 

But in the interior of the country, as well as along the 
Phoenician coast, much land remained to be possessed after 
Dan had become a city of Israel. 

" Syria of Damascus" bordered with ancient Israel on the 
north, and beyond it lay the land of Hamath. " The border 
of Damascus," " the border of Hamath," manifestly denote 
not the cities, between which an extensive region, contain- 
ing several noble cities, intervened,* but the borders of these 
two countries or kingdoms, which touched each other, and 
which embraced wide-extended territories. 

Damascus was the metropolis of a kingdom and the head 
of Syria.! Though Hadad-ezer was defeated by David, 
his successors reigned at Damascus as kings of Syria for 
ten generations,! and Israel had not long the mastery over 
Syria. It was laid waste, and Samaria was grievously be- 
sieged by the King of Syria, who reigned at Damascus ; 
and " Israel was delivered into the nand of Hazael, and 
into the hand of Benhadad his son, all their days."^ Strabo 
speaks of the renowned region, as well as of the noble city 
of Damascus. II Numerous coins exist which show that in 

* These cities, with their respective distances, are noted in the Itinerary of An- 
toninus. From Damascus to Abila, 18 Roman miles ; from Abila to Heliopolis (Ba- 
albec), 38 ; from Heliopolis to Lybon, 32 ; from Lybon to Laodicea (ad Libanum), 32 ; 
fiom Laodicea to Emesa, 18 ; from Emesa to Arelhusa, 16; from Arethusa to Epi- 
phania, or Hamath, 16 — or, in all, 170 miles. — Vide in Chalcidina, et Ctelosyria, Itin- 
er. Antonini Augusti, p. 11, 12, edit. Amstetodami, 1619. 

t Isa., vii., 8. t Nicolas of Damascus, quoted by Josephus, Ant., vii., 5, 2. 

f) 2 Kings, xiii., 3. 

II 'H AaixacKTjvr} X'^P<^> Sia<p£povT(og eTraivovnevt] ten Ss km ^ AaixacKos iroXis 



94 



THE BOUNDARIES OF 



the times of the Caesars it was " the metropolis of the Da- 
mascenes," and the metropolis of the colony of Damascus 
— the name of the country being Damascene.* Not only 
does Hamath lie on its farther side from Israel's ancient 
border, and not only did David and Solomon exercise a 
sovereignty over it, and seek their " borders" far beyond it, 
but such is the change to be yet wrought by one word of 
promise, that the southern border of Dan, in the land yet to 
be possessed, is fixed on the harder of Damascus north- 
ward,! whereas its north border (which antiquarians are 
so fearful to pass) anciently lay on the south border of Da- 
mascus. Beyond that renowned region ample space must 
be found for a whole tribe of Israel, when the land shall 
overflow for the multitude of men. 

Hamath was the capital of the Hamathites, one of the 
families of the Canaanites, all whose lands, though not pos- 
sessed at the death of Joshua or in past ages, pertain to 
Israel by promise. It formed a part of the kingdom of Is- 
rael, though not of the land which the seed of Jacob occu- 
pied as their own in full possession. Not only did Solo- 
mon build store-cities in Hamath, but Jeroboam recovered 
Damascus and Hamath, which belonged to Judah,for Israel. 
He restored the coast of Isra'el f?'om the entering in of 
Hamath unto the sea of the plain. | 

Hamath and its land, once a kingdom, thus pertains to 
the promised inheritance. In that region the Euphrates 
approaches comparatively near to the Mediterranean ; and 
as these form "the sides east and west," the portion of a 
tribe calls for comparatively larger bounds from south to 
north. " From the north end to the coast of the way of 
Hethlon, as one goeth to Hamath, Hazar-enan ; the border 
of Damascus northiuard, to the coast of Hamath ; for these 
are his sides east and west, a portion for Dan." Conjoined 
as the north-norlhwaj'd, or far north, is with the northern 
border of Damascus and the border of Hamath, the north 
end of the Israelitish inheritance, when it shall all be their 
own, may not, or, rather, cannot come short of the north 

alioXoyog ax^^ov ri Kai sirKpavicTarj re Tavrrj Kara ra HspaiKa. Damascemis ager 
appriine nobilitatus. Damascus urbs est insignis, omnium fore nobilissima, quse in 
ea sunt regione, Persis vicina. — Strabo, p. 1074. 

■* Nunimi hujus civitatis plures prostant — Augusti AAMASKHNSiN, Damasce 
norum: Commodi MHTPOnOAEaC AAMACKHN12N, Metropoleos Damasceno 
mm: Caracallae KOAJiNlAC AAMACKOY MHTPOH, Coloniaj Damasci me 
tropolis, &c. — Cellar., Geograph. Ani., torn, ii., p. 270. 

t Ezek., xlviii., 1. t 2 Kings, xiv., 25-28. 



THE PROMISED LAND. 



95 



end of that land which once owned the supremacy of Israel, 
and formed a part of its coast as a subjugated country, and 
which bore the name of a family of the Canaanites — as its 
ancient capital still does — all whose land Israel was finally 
to possess. 

Hamath, as Josephus states, was called Epiphania by the 
Macedonians. Jerome says that it received that name from 
Antiochus, by which it was afterv/ard known to the Greeks 
and Romans. He marks its site as near to Emesa, with 
which it has erroneously been identified by some geogra- 
phers. For in the Syrian language it never lost its original 
name ; but, on the other hand, having long lost its Greek 
appellation, it is known only as Hcunah, the expletive term 
attached to which, as in modern maps, is Epiphania. Abul- 
feda, the celebrated geographer, who himself was its prince 
(in the fourteenth century), calls it " an ancient city, of 
which mention is made in the books of the Israelites."* 
Its site is well known in the valley and on the banks 
of the Orontes. The Orontes bore the name of Nahr 
Chaniat, or River of Hamath,] through the midst of which 
it flowed. It was also called Nahr al Maklub (the river 
reversed), because, as Abulfeda states the reason, it flowed 
from the south to the north, in an opposite direction to the 
Leontes, the Jordan, and the Euphrates. Lebanon, and the 
liill-counlry beyond it, intervening, it found no other course 
to the sea but that which was the reverse of theirs. Ha- 
math has not only retained its original name, but has also 
somewhat resumed its comparative importance, though it 
retains but a shadow of its ancient greatness. It is the 
largest and most populous town on the banks of the Oron- 
tes,J while Antioch, that long outrivalled it, is in ruins ; 
and with a name not limited to a spot, there still exists, 
though within narrowed bounds, " the government of Ha- 
mah," which, when visited by Burckhardt in 1814, com- 
prised, in a thinly-peopled and " little cultivated" country, 
" about one hundred and twenty inhabited villages, and 
seventy or eighty which have been abandoned."*^ 

Jerome, without questioning its identity with Epiphania, 
which he repeatedly asserts, distinguishes it from Hamath 
the Great, spoken of by the Prophet Amos, which name he 

* Abulfeda, Tabula S>TiE, p. 103. t Ibid., p. 149. 

t " The town (Hamali) is of considerable extent, and must contain at least thirty 
thousand inhabitants." — Burckhardt's Syria, p. 146. 
§ Burckhardt's Syria, p, 147. 



9G 



THE BOUNDARIES OF 



applies to Antioch, that had been for ages not only the 
chief city in the land of Hamath, but the capital of the As- 
syrian Empire. It was called " the great," as he relates, 
"to distinguish it from the lesser Hamath (Emath), which 
is called Epiphania." The name of the region in the vicinity 
of Antioch was called Rehletha, which he identifies with 
Rihlah in the land of Hamath* repeatedly mentioned in 
Scripture, and subsequently named Antioch, after Antiochus. 
It became, assuredly, the greatest city in the land, and 
might well have taken the name of Hamath the Great. It 
was early the resort of Egyptian and of Babylonish kings ; 
thither Zedekiah, king of Judah, was led captive ; and there 
his eyes were put out, after they had witnessed the slaugh- 
ter of his sons. Antioch was afterward the seat of Assyrian 
monarchs and of Roman emperors. It is accounted, by the 
most ancient Jewish writers, the capital of Hamath. The 
learned Bochart, in the preface to his Sacred Geography, 
identifies Riblah (which assuredly was in the land of Ha- 
math) with Antioch, and Hamath with Epiphania. f And 
as Solomon not only built store-cities in Hamath, but went 
to Hamath-zoJ^yi, and prevailed against it, or maintained his 
sovereignty over it, as lying within the bounds of his do- 
minions, it may not be unworthy of notice, that " the fount- 
ain of Zoz7>a," in the vicinity of Antioch, retains its name. 

Though there be thus some discordance of opinion re- 
specting the town of Hamath, there is none concerning the 
land. Epiphania and Antioch were both situated in the 
same country, and on the banks of the same river, which 
was called the River Chamat, or Hamath. Were there two 
separate entrances from the sea to these cities north of 
Hamah, a question might then be raised as to the proper 
border of Israel's inheritance. But the valley of the Orontes 
is so hemmed in on the western side by a hill-country, or 
long, continuous mountain chain, from beyond Hamah to 
Antioch, called Hamath the Great, that there is but one 
entrance from the sea to them both that can have any claim 
to be reckoned the north border of Israel. The entering in 
of Hamath is the bounding line, and not the city itself, in 
whatever quarter of the land it stood. 

Strange indeed it may seem, and the fact would be unac- 

* Rehlatha, sive urbs quse nunc Antiocliiam vocant. — Hieron. de situ et reonominibus 
Iccorum Hcbraicnrum, torn, iii., p. 263. 
t Ribla et Hamatha, id est, Antiochia et Epiphania. — Boch., prasf., 41. 



IMA 



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iioisat 











J 











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Ptolenuds or Acie ''-Al-ka.j ^ ^ 

Dox oxXKira-V . € ^JTu^iJr^^-.-^-^^^' En 
ITciiiv-ct) / > . » \ °^JakniJth} 



137 




THE PROMISED LAND. 



97 



countable, were not a false theory thereby maintained, that 
the highest authorities in scriptural geography among Chris- 
tian writers in modern times could have stumbled in a path 
so plain. Instead of seeking the entrance into Hamath 
wherever it could truly be found, Bochart, Cellarius, and 
many others discard the testimony of Jewish writers, be- 
cause they fix the northern borders far beyond the ancient 
bounds, and believed that they reached to Antioch. 

" The Hamathites" (descendants of Canaan), says Bo- 
chart, " were the inhabitants of Hamath, of which Antioch 
was the capital, if we believe Olympiodorus and the para- 
phrasts (or commentaries) of Jonathan and of Jerusalem, and 
Rabbin Solomon. But opposed to this is the fact that, in 
Scripture, the northern boundary of the Holy Land is often 
fixed at the entrance into Hamath, which no one skilled in 
the geography of the country can affirm to have reached 
unto Antioch."* The difficulty, as he states, is easily solv- 
ed from Jerome, Antioch being " Hamath the Great," and 
Epiphania Hamath. And he rather inadvertently adds, that 
though the former city was far remote from the boundaries 
of the Jews, Epiphania was not very distant. 

No one, indeed, who knows where those cities stood, can 
say that Dan bordered on Antioch, or that the ancient bound- 
ary of the Holy Land lay near to the capital of the Assyr- 
ian Empire. But every one acquainted with the geogra- 
phy of Syria can tell, that with the intervening distance of 
more than a hundred and fifty miles, Dan was as far from 
Epiphania on the north as from Beersheba on the south. 
And every one who gives due heed to scriptural testimony 
must know, as the Lord himself has declared, that very 
much land, including kingdoms, lay beyond the ancient fron- 
tier of Israel, which belongs to the promised inheritance. 
And the fact admitted by Bochart, that Antioch lay in the 
land of Hamath, may possibly aid in the solution of the only 
question now worthy of consideration, viz., where the en- 
trance into Hamath really is ; for that, and that alone, can 
determine where is the harder of the heritage of Israel on 
the coast of the Mediterranean. 

Hitherto we have passed along the west border, or the 
shores of the Great Sea, till we have seen that much land, 
as defined, remained to be possessed; and — with the sea on 
one side, and a hill-country on the other, first the Lebanon, 

* Bochart, Phaleg., p. 307. 
I 



98 



THE BOUNtiAllIES 0^ 



and afterward, as every map shows, the Anzeyry Mountain 
— till we have reached the territory over against Hamatli, and 
seek from thence an entrance into that land ; and after hav- 
ing passed the countries of the Sidonians, Arkites, Arva- 
dites, and Giblites, and approached to the mouth of the Oron- 
tes, in the midland region of Northern Syria, we have trav- 
ersed the kingdom of Damascus to reach the destined south- 
ern border of the tribe of Dan. We have passed to Hamath, 
which itself, with its kingdom, owned of old, and must for- 
ever own, the sovereignty of Israel, and be a portion of their 
possession, as well as a part of their coast; and from thence 
we have looked in vain for any opening in the mountainous 
range by which the Orontes could flow into the Mediterra- 
nean, or an entrance be found from it into the land of Ha- 
math, till iVniioch is reached, and another mountain chain, 
stretching across the land, forbids our farther progress. But 
to the Great Sea we must return, to seek, by the guidance 
of the word that never errs, and that misleads none who, 
with a single eye and steady step, do closely follow it, to 
find an entrance into Hamath from thence, or the place 
where the western border of Israel terminates and the north 
begins. And here we need not seek in vain, but have only 
to look to the very high mountain which the Divine word 
points out, ascending which the entrance into Hamath lies 
at our feet, and at once an open way is there, and there 
only, seen, from the Great Sea into the land of Hamath. 

Where, then, according to the scriptural definition of its 
locality, is the entrance into Hamath ? or what defined line 
is there, if any there be, which has a paramount and exclu- 
sive right to bear that name, and which, as that very thing 
which Scripture calls it, suffices as a marked and distinct- 
ive border of that " everlasting possession" which God gave 
to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, and to their seed forever ? 
How is it to be found, or, in other words, what saith the 
Scripture? 

This shall he your north harder ; from the great sea ye 
shall point out for you Mount Hor (Heb., Hor-ha-hor) ; from 
Mount Hor ye shall point out unto the eritrance into Hamath. 
" The west side also shall be the great sea, till a man come 
over against Hamath." " And this shall be the border of 
the land towards the north side, /rom the great sea, the way 
of Hethlon, as men go to Zedad, Hamath, Berothah, &c. 
From the north end to the coast of the way of Hethlon, as 
one goeth to Hamath,'' &c. 



THE PROMISED LAND. 



99 



^he entrance into Hamath is thus manifestly from the 
great sea, or the Mediterranean ; and the limits of the west 
border along the coast are not to be sought till a man come 
over against Hamath. Here, then, Lebanon is passed ; for 
Hamath lies on the east of the Anzeyry Mountains. The 
special direction is, from the great sea ye shall point out for 
you Mount Hor, or Hor-ha-hor. Hor, in Hebrew, signifies 
mountain ; and a repetition of the same word, according to 
the Hebrew idiom, denotes the superlative degree. It is 
thus translated in the Vulgate, or common Latin version of 
the Old Testament, a very high mountain, and the passage is 
rendered, " coming even to a very high mountain, from ivhich 
they go into Ejnaih.'^''* 

Lebanon, and the territory of the GihJiles, and all the 
land of the Canaanites on the coast, had to be passed be- 
fore such a mountain could be reached, however conspicu- 
ously it might rise to view. Captains Irby and Mangles, 
advancing from south to north along the Phoenician coast, 
without the thought of bearing testimony concerning the 
borders of Israel, or previously of looking for any such 
mountain there, thus connect, in the same paragraph, the 
brief notice of Gabala (or Gebal), of the vast plain bounded 
by mountains (which intervened between them and Hamath, 
opposite to it as then they were), and of the most conspicu- 
ous object before them, after Lebanon was passed. "At 
Jibilee, the ancient Gabala, are Roman ruins, the principal 
of wTiich are the remains of a fine theatre at the north side 
of the town. The whole journey from Tripoli — with a sin- 
gle exception near Markab, where the coast is rocky — is 
along a vast plain at the foot of the Ansanar (Anzeyryf) 
Mountains. Mount Lebanon v^as in sight the whole way 
from Tripoli. Mount Casius ivas before us"'\. 

The reader, in quest of the entrance into Hamath from 
the sea, must remember his position here, that, as Captains 
Irby and Mangles were actually doing, he journeys north- 
ward along the Mediterranean shore, in the land of the Ar- 
vadites, who were Canaanites, or of the Giblites, all of 
which lay within the promised heritage of Jacob's seed, sit- 
uated directly opposite ^o Hainath ; the Anzeyry Mountains, 
beyond which it lay, shutting out wholly that land from 



* Pervenientes usque ad montem altissimum, a quo venient in Emath. 

t Burckhardt's orthography is adopted. 

t Captains Irby and Mangles' Travels, p. 222, 223. 



100 



THE BOUNDARIES Of* 



view, and separating it from the Phoenician plain. And to 
know where the entrance into Hamatli is to be found, he has 
not, even where he stands, to look for it, but, in obedience 
to the Divine direction, to use the prescribed means of find- 
ing it. From the great sea ye shall point ovt for you a very 
high mountain. That is literally the point for which he has 
to look. The eye has not to wander inland over a wide 
mountainous range, stretching for more than a hundred 
miles ; but a very high mountain has to be pointed out, a 
precise place has to be fixed on, from whence — it may be 
from whence alone on all the northern Phoenician shore — 
the entrance into Hamath has next to be pointed out or to be 
seen. Such a high mountain, to be there singled out fro?n 
the sea, may, or, rather, must be seen also on its coast, there 
to stand alone or unrivalled as a landmark, and as a point 
commanding an inland view. Such a mountain is Casius. 
While Lebanon was still in view, though left behind, no 
other mountain is seen along the shore to compete in height 
with Casius ; nay, the whole land is there a plain — the great 
plain, as it is called ; and, terminating the last of the land 
of the Canaanites that dwelt in Phosnicia, Mount Casius is 
ever in the eye of the traveller journeying northward, and, 
as if without a competitor or rival claimant, is ever before 
him in the maritime territory opposite to Hamath. The in- 
quirer has to hold on his way along the coast of the great 
sea, and cannot leave it, or reach the proper, because pre- 
scribed, point, till such a mountain be found, from which 
again he has to point out the entrance into Hamath. That 
Mount Casius, which can thus be pointed out, upon the coast 
and in the proper direction, along all the region in which 
alone the required mountain can be rightly looked for, an- 
swers all the conditions of the problem, admits of a demon- 
stration that may be said to be ocular ; and the distance at 
which it is seen, while Lebanon, which had been passed, is 
at the same time in view, might alone prove its title to the 
name of Hor-ha-hor, or a very high mountain. 

After passing over hills richly wooded, without descend- 
ing into a plain. Captains Irby and Mangles reposed during 
night in the village of Lourdee, in an elevated situation, close 
by the side of " the highest pinnacle of Casius."* It thus 

* Hor-ha-lior has been translated a mountain of a mountain, a double mountain. 
If such a translation be preferred, Casius and Anti-Casius stand re«dy to respond to 
it as definite points. But the entrance into Hamath has not to be pointed out by a 
man standing on two mountains(!), but on me, especially if these mountains, like 



THE PROMISED LAND. 



101 



rises like a mountain on (or of) a mountain, in a manner of 
which its scriptural name may be said to be literally signif- 
icant or expressive. 

Mount Casius, rising abruptly from the sea, high above 
all the hills in its vicinity, and peculiarly of a pointed form, 
and situated between the once famous cities of Seleucia and 
Laodicea, is repeatedly mentioned by ancient writers ; and 
the preposterous terms in which they describe it sufficient- 
ly show how greatly it was renowned for its height, so as 
appropriately to bear the designation of a " very high mount- 
ain." Its locality is undoubted, as marked by Strabo* and 
Pliny, near to Seleucia, and by Ammianus Marcellinus, as 
the Orontes flows by its base.f Its height is described by 
Pliny and others, in an oft-repeated statement, which merits 
ridicule alone, as such, that at the fourth watch, the sun 
(three hours before its rise) is to be seen from its summit ; 
so that the spectator, by turning round, or looking from the 
east to the west, can equally see both day and night at 
once ;X ^"^^^ somewhat less extravagantly, he marks its alti- 
tude as four miles by the steepest ascent. Its bare and lofty 
pinnacle, as reflecting the first rays of the sun, might in- 
deed be the first herald of the morning, after — if not, as 
alleged, before — the crowing of the cock.<^ Noted as Mount 
Casius of Syria thus was for the early rising of the sun as 
seen from its summit, the fact may plainly be inferred, that 
of all the hilly region around, the " pinnacle of Casius," 
from its superior elevation, was daily first gilded by the so- 
lar rays. For the same reason, it would prove the first and 
most conspicuous landmark /rom iJie sea, situated as it is on 
the lip of the ocean. Without attempting to define its sit- 
uation, Pococke, who passed it, affirms that it is certainly 
(giving unconsciously the very translation of Hor-ha-hor in 
the Vulgate) a very high mountain, though, as he very safe- 
ly states, " Pliny's testimony seems to exceed the truth. "|J 

Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, stretch from south to north for more than a hundred 
miles. * Strabo, p. 1063. 

t Orontes imos pedes Casii Montis illius eelsi prastenneans. — Amm. Marcel., lib. 
xiv., c. 8 (al. 26), p. 33, edit. Lugd. Bat., 1693. 

t Super Seleuciam Mons Casius, cujus excelsa altitudo quarta vigilia orientemper 
tenebras solem adspioit, brevi circuniactu corporis diem noctemque pariter ostendens. 
— Plin., lib. v., c. 22. In Monti Casio, quam videndi solis ortus gratia noctu ad- 
scendisset, &c. — Had. Spartian., c. xiv. 

t) Proestituto feriarum die Casium montem adscendit nemorosum, et terreti ambitu 
in sublime porrectum, unde secundis galliciniis videtur primi solis exortus. — Ammian., 
lib. xxii., c. 14, (33), p. 256. Hi omues de Syriae Monti Casio illam de prematuro solis 
ortu narrationem habent. — Vide Cellarii Geograph. Ant., torn, ii,, p. 251. 

II Pococke's Description of the East, p. 187. 



102 



THE BOUNDARIES OP 



The reason which he assigns why a southern summit of the 
same mountain could alone, in his estimation, be Anti-Ca- 
sius, viz., that " all the other hills being very low with regard 
to (in comparison with) Mount Casius,^'* may serve at once 
to show why it has been so peculiarly celebrated for its 
height, and how it is thereby aptly fitted, as if raised on pur- 
pose by the God of Nature, who is also the God of Israel, 
for forming the termination of the western border of Isra- 
el's inheritance along the Mediterranean Sea, and the point 
where the northern begins. 

The peculiar position of Mount Casius, not only on the 
very verge of the sea, but also at the northern termination 
of a long maritime plain, and the termination, too, of the riv- 
er and valley of the Orontes (or, according to Abulfeda, of 
the River of Hamath), tends, together with its pointed form, 
to render it more conspicuous and remarkable than loftier 
mountains in other regions, whose pre-eminence is not so 
marked. Thus while, in that pure atmosphere, it is seen 
for so long a distance in the northern coast of Syria, and 
also from the sea, it is no less conspicuous at the distance 
of more than sixty miles in an opposite direction ; for the 
same travellers by whom we have been led to the first view 
of it, state that Mount Casius was in sight from Sermain, 
which lies on the farther side of the land of Hamath. Mount 
Casius is, we may confidently affirm, the only mountain on 
any part of the coast which lies over against the land of 
Hamath, that is anywhere visible from it, or from any region 
beyond it. 

But if Mount Casius be the very high mountain from 
which the entrance into Hamath has to be pointed out, 
where is such an entrance to be seen from it ? That en- 
trance is the very object in immediate view lying at its 
base, and stretching inland to Antioch, as from the north 
end of the land one goeth urito Hamath, &c. The Orontes 
empties itself into the sea at the foot of Casius, a narrow 
plain intervening at its entrance. And that mountain is as 
fitting a station from whence the entrance into Hamath may 
be pointed out, as it is itself a peculiar landmark jTrom the 
sea. 

" From the sea ye shall point out to you a very high 
mountain, and from that mountain ye shall point out the 
entrance into Hamath." And not till Mount Casius is as- 

* Pococke's Description of the East, p. 187. 



THE PROMISED LAND. 



103 



cended is any entrance into Hamath seen ; but its northern 
side is that also of a valley, which needs but to be pointed 
out as the sought-for border of Israel. Descriptions by un- 
conscious travellers may show that the relative connexion 
between the high mountain and the entering in of Hamath 
is as close \x\fact as in the text. 

" The southern part of the city (the ruined Seleucia) 
commands a view of the sea, Mount Casius, the port, the 
plain to the south, and the Orontes running through it." 
" From the mountains the country appears like a plain all 
the way to Antioch ; but about a league to the east fro?n the 
sea there are low hills almost as far as that city, which have 
fruitful valleys between them."* 

" The valley in which the Orontes winds down and 
discharges itself into the sea is well seen from hence 
(Seleucia). Its southern boundary is the range of Jebel 
Okrab (Mount Casius), the steep sides of which seem to rise 
abruptly from the sea, and continue their ascent till they 
terminate in its gray and bare peak, at the height of per- 
haps 5000 feet from the base. Its northern boundary is the 
range of mountain called Jebel Mousa, the western ex- 
tremity of which slopes down into a cape at the distance 
of less than a mile north of the moles and entrance of the 
ruined port of Antioch, and its even summit runs along to 
the eastward, until it loses itself among more uneven hills. 
The inner or eastern parts of these ranges gradually ap- 
proach each other till they seem to meet, thus leaving a 
triangular valley or plain between them, its base-line being 
the edge of the seacoast, and its whole length from eight to 
ten miles. It is nearly in the centre of this that the Oron- 
tes winds down its course ; and the whole of the space on 
its northern bank is occupied by corn-fields, mulberry 
grounds, gardens of fig-trees, and detached cottages, all ex- 
cellently built."! 

" I set out" (from Antioch), says Mr. G. Robinson, " for 
Suedieh, situated in a plain five hours and a half southwest 
of Antioch, and one from the sea. The road to it is over a 
country slightly undulated, and crossed occasionally by 
streams, falling from the mountains to the north, and run- 
ning towards the Orontes." " From the ruins of Seleucia 
I crossed over the plain southward, about four miles, to the 

* Pococke's Description of the East, p. 186. 

t Buckingham's Travels among the Arab Tribes, p. 550, 551, 



104 



THE BOUNDARIES OF 



mouth of the Orontes. The entrance is marked by the 
whitened tomb of a Turkish sauton. Djebel Okrab (Mount 
Casius), on the south side of the river, appears from this 
spot to great advantage, rising abruptly yrom the sea to the 
height of between five and six thousand feet, and terminating 
in a sharp peak. Its lower part is cultivated, but towards 
the top it is gray and bare of trees, from whence it derives 
its name Okrab, meaning in Arabic ' bald.' From the mouth 
of the river I ascended the right bank till I came to a large 
basin, which I was told was the ancient port of Antioch.V 
Mr. Robinson returned to Antioch on the southern side of 
the river, partly along the north declivity of Mount Casius . 
" In one hour I reached the banks of the Orontes, near the 
place where, issuing from the mountains, it enters the plains 
previous to emptying itself finally into the sea, two miles 
from hence. At this stage of its course, though not very 
wide, it is a fine, deep, and steady-flowing river, and navi- 
gable for vessels of about a hundred tons burden. On 
crossing the river, and reaching the opposite side, we com- 
menced ascending the left bank of the stream, and in a 
quarter of an hour entered a mountain pass of surprising 
beauty. For more than two hours from hence the Orontes 
is seen flowing between a double line of high hills, winding 
and turning incessantly — as the ground on which it passes 
presents obstacles to its free course — though enabling it 
thereby to distribute alternately to either side the fertilizing 
powers of its waters. In this interval the road is naturally 
subject to the caprices of the river. At two hours from the 
western entrance of the pass, the mountains on the right 
bank of the river suddenly dwindle into comparative insig- 
nificance, and shortly after the view opens again to the 
plain of Souedie. Following the path along the hills which 
overlook the Orontes, in three hours we reached Antioch, 
making a total of seven from Suedieh. The road we took 
on our return this day is nearly two miles more than the 
straight one across the plain, and is, therefore, little fre- 
quented."* 

Captains Irby and Mangles, after having rested during 
night at the village of Lourdie, situated immediately by the 
side of the highest pinnacle of Mount Casius, without as- 
cending it, descended the north side of the mountains, 
through woody and wild scenery ; and after having lost 

* Travels in Palestine and Syria, vol. ii., p. 294, 298. 



TflE PROMISED LAND. 



105 



their way several times, reached " the banks of the Orontes 
at the place where commences the picturesque part of the 
river, and immediately below the spot where the chart was 
marked, the site of the city and groves of Daphne. We 
began now to follow the banks of the river, and were 
astonished at the beauty of the scenery, far surpassing any- 
thing we expected to see in Syria, and, indeed, anything 
we had witnessed in Switzerland, though we walked nine 
hundred miles in that country, and saw most of its beauty. 
The river, from the time we began to trace its banks, ran 
continually between the high hills, winding and turning in- 
cessantly ; at times the road led over precipices in the 
rocks, looking down perpendicularly on the river. The 
luxuriant variety of foliage was prodigious ; and the rich 
green myrtle, which was very plentiful, contrasted with 
the colour of the road, the soil of which was a dark-red 
granite, made us imagine we were riding through pleasure- 
grounds. The laurel, laurustinus, bay-tree, fig-tree, wild 
vine, plane-tree, English sycamore, arbutus, both common 
and andrachne, dwarf oak, &c., were scattered in all di- 
rections. At times the road was overhunfj with rocks 
covered with ivy ; the mouths of caverns also presented 
themselves, and gave a wildness to the scene ; and the 
perpendicular cliffs jutted into the river upward of three 
hundred feet high, forming corners round which ttie waters 
ran in a most romantic manner ; and on one occasion the 
road wound round a deep bay thus, so that, on perceiving 
ourselves immediately opposite the spot we had so recently 
passed, it appeared that we had crossed the river. We 
descended at times into plains cultivated with mulberry 
plantations and vines, and prettily studded with picturesque 
cottages. The occasional shallows of the river, keeping up 
a perpetual roaring, completed the beauty of the delightful 
scene, which lasted about two hours, when we entered into 
the plain of the Suadrach, where the river becomes of 
greater breadth, and runs to the sea in as straight a line as 
a canal."* 

The patience of the reader may have been tried in pass- 
ing through the dry details of names and mere localities, as 
if the whole scene, destitute of all attraction, possessed no 
other interest, and were bleak as the bare pinnacle of Casi- 
us. But his perseverance may be rewarded by the enchant" 

* Irby a,Rd Mangles' Travels, p. 225, 226, 



106 



THE BOUNDARIES OF 



ing scene which thus bursts upon his view, on being intro- 
duced to the entrance into Hamath. It is not, however, 
with its beauty that we have here to do, when a rigid scru- 
tiny and strict search as to the reality of its claim, as addu- 
ced for the first time, have alone to be regarded. But these 
simply and hitherto unapjdied facts may conspire, with still 
farther proof, to make the entrance into Hamath patent to 
the world. 

Nothing but a hill-country, without any such entrance 
into Hamath, is to be seen along the whole of the eastern, 
side of the great plain, till that plain, which lies over against 
the land of Hamath, or great valley of the Orontes, is passed, 
and Mount Casius is ascended. But immediately from it, 
as from the lower hills around, the country appears like a 
plain all the way to Aniioch. The Orontes at last, after a 
course of nearly two hundred miles from south to north, al- 
most parallel to the coast, is turned by another mountain 
chain, winds its way hetween a doiihle line of high hills, and 
then, straight as a canal, enters by a direct line into the 
Mediterranean Sea, a fine, deep, and steady-flowing stream, 
without any obstruction to turn it aside when it had reach- 
ed the junction of the west and north borders of Israel. 

While it is thus manifest that there is in this precise 
point an entrance into Hamath, the nature of it, as well as 
the situation it occupies, may add another feature by which 
it may be recognised. 

Cellarius, who earnestly strives to assimilate the borders 
of the promised land with those of ancient Israel, states, 
without adducing any illustration or specifying any locality, 
that the manner in which the border of Palestine, as he de- 
nominates it, is spoken of as the entrance into Hamath, de- 
notes " a province to be entered through straits or narrow 
passes" — per fauces et angustias adeundam* Plain as is 
the meaning of these words, it may be more obvious to some 
readers by a mere reference to the common Latin dictiona- 
ry — fauces, straits or narrow passages, the mouth of a 
river." Such, precisely, is the actual scene. A mountain 
pass, where for several miles the opposite hills almost meet, 
forms, near to the mouth of a river, the entrance into Ha- 
math ; while, notwithstanding, from the high mountain from 
which it is pointed out, and is seen to form a well-defined 
valley, it appears, however narrowed in some places by low 

* Cellar., torn, ii., p. 2S1, 



THE PROMISED LAND. 



107 



hills, like a plain all the way to Antioch, or for the distance 
of sixteen miles, till extensive plains spread out in the land 
of Hamath. 

Traversing covenanted, and, therefore, Israelitish ground, 
we first passed along the shore till the land bordered with 
the mouth of the Orontes ; and again, in the interior, with 
a hill-country between, to Antioch. And from more abun- 
dant proof that may still farther be supplied, the reader may 
judge whether, in the space tliat intervenes between these 
two places, the scriptural entrance into Hamath may not be 
seen, as plainly as was the road — which lay there the whole 
way — between Antioch and its port. 

But while the Phoenician coast has to be followed till the 
designated mountain be reached, and very much land has 
to be passed beyond the ancient frontier of Israel, so that 
all the appointed territories may be included within the bor- 
ders, yet it is not from the shore, hnifrom the sea, that the 
very high mountain was to be pointed out, from which the 
entrance into Hamath is seen. It is, therefore, necessary 
to add the testimony of the navigator to that of the traveller. 

Sailing northward from Arvad, the ancient capital of the 
Arvadites, as Captains Irby and Mangles advanced in the 
same direction along the shore, another witness, on passing 
Latakia (or Laodicea), thus points to Mount Casius. " The 
scenery soon after became very fine. Mount Casius rose 
out of the sea with stupendous grandeur, raising its craggy 
sides and lofty peak of naked rock into the sky ; the woody 
precipices along the coast seemed to drop into the sea. 
Their forms were cast in the most magnificent mould, much 
finer than the heights of Lebanon. Mount Casius is from 
erery point a sublime feature, but the most beautiful point 
is the gorge in the mountains through which the Orontes 
finds its way to the plain and sea ; there is a loneliness in 
the folding forms of the mountains, a solitude, a wildness, 
which makes one long to trace the romantic course of this 
river"* — to see, it might have been said, the entrance into 
Hamath. 

" The entrance by the mouth of the Orontes," as it is lit- 
erally called, "possesses a grandeur rarely equalled by this 
beautiful country. Mount Casius rises abruptly from the 
gea ; its summit is a bold rocky pinnacle/'f 



* Fisher's Views of Syria. Descriptions by J, Came, Esq., of Cambridge, vol. 
ii., p, 28, 29, t Ibid., vol. ii., p. 77, 



108 



THE BOUNDARIES OF 



But Other witnesses are not wanting to raise their voice 
at last from that once frequented but long deserted shore. 
As if the very first fruits of the Euphrates expedition had 
been destined to be an offering to the cause of scriptural il- 
lustration, by the concurring solution of another problem 
than that of the practicability of the navigation of the Eu- 
phrates. Colonel Chesney, in the Journal of the Royal Ge- 
ographical Society, commences an admirable article on the 
Bay of Antioch by a description of the scene, as the expe- 
dition bore down upon the coast of Syria, in order that they 
might disembark at the very point which formed of old the 
port of Antioch. In preference to all other places, he sought 
an eritrance there, whereby to go to Beer on the Euphrates. 

" The Bay of Antioch is spacious, free from rocks, and 
well sheltered on every side, with the exception of the 
southeast, where, in the distant horizon, is seen the lofty 
island of Cyprus ; the anchorage, however, is good, and the 
water deep, almost to the very beach. This was the spot 
selected, in order to avoid the Beilan Mountains, for the 
disembarcation of the party destined to proceed on the ex- 
pedition to the Euphrates. On the 3d April, 1835, H. M. S. 
Columbine, followed by the George Canning, under all sail, 
led the way from the offing towards the anchorage. To 
the south, as we proceeded, was the lofty Jehel El Akrah 
[Mount Casius], rising 5318 feet above the sea, with its 
abuttnents extending to Antioch. To the north, the Beilan 
range, 5337 feet, well stocked with forest trees, chiefly oak, 
walnut, and fir ; and in front, the broad expanse of the bay, 
backed by the hills of Antioch, Mount S. Simeon, or Ben- 
kiliseh, covered with myrtle, bay, and arbutus, all together 
forming a striking and magnificent panorama,"* &c. 

" The southern horn of the Bay of Antioch trends inward, 
east by north, about seven miles to the beach. Near its 
outer extremity is the little bay or fissure called Kasab, and 
three miles nearer to the mainland that of Kara Mayor, 
which is rather larger, and has a good anchorage off it close 
to the shore ; the rest of the distance along the foot of Mount 
Casius being precipitous, and for the most part inaccessible, 
as far as the beach, beyond which the range of Jebel El 
Akrab runs towards Antioch in the previous direction, east 
by north, with the rich, picturesque valley of the Orontes at 
Ihe foot, and the celebrated fountain of Daphne oi} i|s slope. 

* Geog'raphical Journal, yol. viii., p. 228. 



THE PROMISED LAND. 



109 



Eight miles and a half north by west, half west, is the other 
horn of the bay, which is formed by Jebel Mnsa ; on the 
base of which, opening northwest, are the ruins of the well- 
known city built by Seleucus Nicator to celebrate his vic- 
tory over Antigonus ; but it has a much deeper interest to 
the Christian from being the spot where Paul and Barnabas 
embarked for Cyprus."* 

Such a description, by such an observer, may add a still 
deeper interest to the scene, as showing how the Bay of 
Antioch has been formed by Nature's God, and presents the 
opening on the coast where He has also formed the entrance 
into Hamath, so often spoken of in his Word. 

The expedition first pitched their tents near to the ruins 
of Seleucia. " The scene, with the British flaof floatinar 
over their heads, and the noble mountains which surrounded 
them, of which Mount Casius was the monarch, was most 
animated and picturesque."! 

That spot, with Mount Casius in the distance, is delinea- 
ted in the splendid work entitled " Fisher's Views, or Syria, 
the Holy Land, &c., illustrated," to the publishers of which 
the author is indebted for an illustration of the scene, as 
well as the view of a portion of the valley, both taken from 
the original plates. The reader is referred to other views 
of Mount Casius in the same work, as it is seen from the 
sea (vol. i., p. 77) from Mr. Barker's village at Suadeah ; 
and from the village of Beit-y-ass (vol. iii., p. 74), where the 
lofty peak of Casius is seen towering higher than the other 
less defined mountains. 

In the description of the view of the remains of the port 
of Seleucia, it is said, " The scene at present is wild and 
impressive. A desolate and rocky beach — Mount Casius 
on the left — a few country barks crossing the Bay of Sua- 
deah, to enter the mouth of the Orontes. The two piers of 
the ancient port are seen projecting into the sea : the ruined 
tower on the rock was built for its protection ; and near 
this one of the piers ran into the sea, constructed of very 
large stones, som^e of them twenty feet by six in width and 
five in depth : they have been fastened together by iron 
cramps, the remains of which are still to be seen. Mount 
Casius, that towers on the left far above the other heights, 
is the finest mountain, and of the most striking appearance 
of any in Syria : its summit is a pyramid of rock ; its sides 

* Geograpliical Journal, vol. viii., p. 228, 229. I Fisher's Views, vol, i,, p. 77. 

K 



110 



THE BOUNDARIES OF 



are broken into deep and precipitous glens. Its larger por- 
tion is bare and naked, yet it is more sublime in its bareness 
than if sheltered entirely, like many of its neighbours, by 
magnificent forests. The setting sun, resting long on its 
aerial deserts of rocks, on its wild and waste crest, is glo- 
rious to behold."* (See Plate 1.) 

But it is not from the sea, but from the mountain, that the 
entrance is to be seen. The hills of Antioch, Mount S. 
Simeon, or Ben-kiliseh, shut in the view ; and not one man 
on board the vessels having entered the bay before, great un- 
easiness was felt lest they might have mistaken the intended 
bay, till, near the shore, the Orontes was seen, from the top- 
mast head, winding towards its estuary. The summit of 
Ben-kiliseh, a low mountain, is about five miles from the 
sea, and commands a beautiful view westward, over a very 
rich plain extending to the sea, closed in by Mount Casius to 
the southward, and the Jebel Musa range to the northward ; 
while to the east is the valley of the Orontes, terminated by 
the castellated hills of Antioch, the general view being 
closed to the northeast by the Beilan Mountains.! 

A section of the valley near this point is presented in the 
view of the junction of a trihutary stream which descends 
from Mount Amanus, and falls into the river; in the de- 
scription of which it is said, "The numerous flocks and 
their shepherds give a pastoral appearance to this scene ; 
the old stone bridge [which shows that of old there was a 
road or entrance there], with its single arch, crosses the 
tributary stream that loudly pours its tide into the calm, ma- 
jestic bosom of the Orontes. Cultivation is visible even to 
the water's edge : the declivities afford the richest pasture 
to the flocks, whose keepers, seated on the banks or beneath 
the trees, look every day on a scene that might vie with the 
fields of Arcadia. The whole valley of the Orontes, up to 
Antioch, is magnificent, between the ranges of Mount Ca- 
sius and Amanus, and it is cultivated in many parts, and 
might be made, with industry, as productive as in ancient 
times : viewed a few miles farther from the heights of Beit- 
el-ma (a lower prolongation of Casius), the river presents a 
splendid broad expanse, winding between the bold range of 
Amanus and the mountain of the column. "| (See Plate 2.) 

The view presents only a part of the valley ; and even 



* Fisher's Views, vol. ii., p. 17. 
$ Fislier's Views, vol. i., p. 18, 



I Geog. Joum., vol. viii., p. 228, 229, 



THE PROMISED LAND. 



Ill 



from the summit of Ben-kiliseh the view of the valley of 
the Orontes is terminated to the east by the castellated hills 
of Antioch, and the termination of the entrance is not from 
thence to be seen ; but from the very high mountain which 
towers above the other hills, the entrance is seen in all its 
length, and beyond it part of the land of Hamath, to which 
it leads. In Mr. Ainsworth's Researches in Assyria, a view 
is given of Jehel Akra, or Mount Casius, seen from Gul 




Bashi, the " head of the lake" jvith the hills of Antioch in 
front, which is here inserted, with the kind permission of 
the author and publisher. As Casius forms a most promi- 
nent landmark as pointed out from the sea, so, on the other 
extremity of the entrance into Hamath, it forms as conspic- 
uous an object, and is seen to rise as a mountain whose base 
is the summit of another — Hor-ha-hor, or literally a mount- 
ain on a mountain. The height of the " summit of pass,'* 
or " the minimum of crest, and summit level of a road," is 
2460 feet; the village of Beshkir is 2513;* but another 
mountain rises above the summit level of the lower to more 
than twice that height. 

" Burckhardt, Volney, Adrien Balbi, and others, have 
looked upon Casius and the Nosairi Hills as effecting a con- 

* Ainsworth's Assyria, p. 305. 



112 



THE BOUNDARIES OF 



nexion between the Lebanon and Amanus, and hence geo- 
graphically connecting the systems of Taurus and Libanus ; 
and this view of the subject," according to the able testi- 
mony of Mr. Ainsworth, " is farther supported by the geog- 
nostic structure of the chains."* The entrance into the 
land of Hamath thus lies between them and the connecting 
point, or base of Casius j and the opposite hill bears the 
name of Djebel Mousa, as if the name of the Hebrew legis- 
lator were engraven on the northern frontier of Israel. 

An extensive mountain range from north to south, and 
another from east to west, form, in their respective termi- 
nations, the opposite sides of the valley, which terminates 
also the course of the Orontes, or the River of Hamath. 
That river flowed alike by Hamath and Antioch, through 
the centre of the land ; and it is not an unnatural supposi- 
tion, though other facts were not known to support it, that 
the entrance into Hamath yVom the sea was, in all hkelihood, 
the same as that by which the River of Hamath entered the 
sea. Immediately at that point where its waters mingle 
with those of the ocean, there rises abruptly a very high 
mountain, from whence an open and direct entrance into 
Hamath lies in immediate prospect, right inland, which 
doubtless formed the great thoroughfare from the sea in 
Northern Syria, and opened up a plain way from thence to 
the cities in the land of Hamath, and led directly to others 
in the vicinity or on the banks of the Euphrates. 

Riblah, in the land of Hamath, was the Syrian seat of the 
King of Babylon in the days of the prophets of Israel. An- 
tioch, in its place or immediate neighbourhood, became the 
seat of the Assyrian monarchs, and was repeatedly the re- 
sort of Roman emperors. Its port, of which the remains are 
yet to be seen, was near to the mouth of the Orontes ; and 
Seleucia, with its port " capable of containing a thousand 
vessels," lay in the vicinity. Along the coast the lofty pin- 
nacle of Casius was the surest beacon from the sea; and it 
directed the mariner to the entrance of Hamath, the mari- 
time terminus of which formed the stations of two extensive 
ports, while at its opposite extremity lay Hamath the Great, 
or the capital of Assyria. The bounding mountains on both 
sides precluded any other entrance ; while a liver, naviga- 
ble for vessels of one hundred tons, with a road on its south 
side, and a narrow path on the northern bank, where the 
opposing mountains almost meet, passed through a most en- 

* 4ili5wortVs Assyria, p, 005,, 306. 



THE PJROMISED LAND. 



113 



chanting scene, which there is thus strong reason for be- 
lieving was consecrated by Divine promise as ultimately a 
portion of the northern border of Israel, before the Grove 
of Daphne, planted beside it, was desecrated by heathen 
abominations. Having the celebrated and opulent city of 
Seleucia, together v/ith its port and that of Antioch, in one 
end, and the city of Antioch, which numbered eight hun- 
dred thousand inhabitants, on the other, and opening a way 
from the north erid of Syria, not only to the land of Hamath, 
but also to the countries which environed the Euphrates, the 
valley in which the River Hamah or Orontes terminated its 
course was, and is worthy, as the entrance into Hamath, of 
being recognised as a heaven-appointed border of that land, 
which, so soon as it is entered, thus begins to assert or vin- 
dicate the title given it by the Lord, " the glory of all lands." 

The entering in of Hamath from Hor-ha-hor, or the very 
high mountain pointed out from the sea, opens the way from 
thence to other places of which mention is made ; and far- 
ther scriptural definitions are given of the north border of Is- 
rael, which need here to be repeated. 

*' And this shall be your north border : from the great sea 
ye shall point out for you Mount Hor ; and from Mount Hor 
ye shall point out your border unto the entrance of Hamath ; 
and the goings forth of the border shall be to Zedad. And 
the border shall go on to Ziphron, and the goings out of it 
shall be at Hazar-enan : this shall be your north border."* 
" Every place whereon the soles of your feet shall tread 
shall be yours ; from the wilderness and Lebanon, from the 
river, the River Euphrates, even unto the uttermost sea 
shall your coast be,"t &c. " This shall be the border of 
your land towards the north side, from the great sea, the way 
of Hethlon, as men go to Zedad ; Hamath, Berothah, Sib- 
raim, which is between the border of Damascus and the 
border of Hamath ; Hazar-hatticon, which is by the coast 
of Hauran. And the border from the sea shall be Hazar- 
enan, the border of Damascus, and the north northward, and 
the border of Hamath. And this is the north side."| " From 
the north end to the coast of the way of Hethlon, as one 
goeth to Hamath, Hazar-enan, the border of Damascus 
northward, to the coast of Hamath, a portion for Dan."^ 



* Num., xxxiv., 7-9. 
+ Ezek., xlvii., 15-17. 



t Deut., xi., 24. 
Ibid., xlviii., 1. 



114 



THE BOUNDARIRS OP 



These different places to which the way lay, from the 
sea, through the entrance into Hamalh, are, in general, 
slightly, if at all, noticed by geographers of the Holy Land, 
or are, as by Calmet, &,c., merely said to be towns "on the 
north border of Israel ;" and hence, on the assumption that 
the terms of the covenant were fully ratified of old, their 
places have been sought for in the immediate vicinity of the 
ancient borders, or even, as Hamath in the land of Naphtali, 
within the old Israelitish possessions. 

It is not, indeed, said, or necessarily implied, that all the 
towns or places here mentioned lay on the frontier o( the 
land, or were themselves bordering towns of Israel. The 
maimer in which some of them are spoken of seems to im- 
ply the reverse. The entering in of Hamath manifestly, as 
repeatedly declared, forms the northern extremity, or border 
on the seacoast. But in the new allocation of the tribes it 
is written, " Frotn ike north end to the coast of the way of 
Hethlon, as one goeth to Hamath, Hazar-enan, the border 
of Damascus northward, a portion for Dan." The border 
of Damascus northward is here named, not as the north 
border of Israel, but as the limit of a tribe which had its 
portion beyond it. And the mention of the way to Hamath, 
and other places from the Jiorth end, seems plainly to de- 
note their relative position, if not towards the east border, 
to the south, or within the limits of the land. 

Of these different names, scarcely any one has had a 
"local habitation" attached to it by commentators but Be- 
rothah alone ; and, except of it, scarcely any mention is 
made of them in Scripture. It may thus be inferred, that as 
unnamed, if not unknown, they rather lay at no inconsider- 
able distance beyond Dan, than either near it, or within the 
old inheritance of any of the tribes. Berothah thus is in- 
cidentally mentioned when the distant conquests of David 
are recorded. When he smote Hadad-ezer, and recovered 
his harder at the River Euphrates, and established his do- 
minion there, " he took much brass from Berothai, a city of 
Hadad-ezer."* The proper harder of Israel extended from 
the Mediterranean to the Euphrates, and from the entering 
in of Hamath as men go to Berothah. Berothai and Bero- 
thah, in these corresponding passages, pointing to the same 
locality, seem evidently identical ; and as having pertained 
to David, it as manifestly lay on the borders which he went 

* ? Sam., viii.j 3, 8. 



THE PROMISED LAND. 



115 



to recover, or within the inheritance of Israel. This prom- 
ise was given to the Israelites by the Lord : Every place 
whereon the soles of your feet shall tread shall he yours. 
From the River Euphrates to the uttermost sea shall your 
coast he. David did establish his dominion by the Eu- 
phrates, and he was followed by thousands of Israel, whose 
feet did tread its banks, not as captives, but as conquerors ; 
and Berothai was one of the cities which owned his do- 
minion, and yielded up its spoil. The fixing of its site, 
therefore, may tend, in no mean degree, to the more precise 
determination of the actual borders of Israel, 

On the principle of proximity to Palestine, and from the 
similarity of the name, Beyrout, the ancient Berytus, has been 
said to be Berothah ; and hence an argument has been drawn 
for fixinof the border there. The derivation which has been 
given to the word from Beeroth, wells, might seem, if cor- 
rect, to warrant the appropriation. But the authority of Bo- 
chart, as alike high and here unprejudiced, may be freely 
appealed to; and the incidental testimony which he addu- 
ces from the famous Sanchoniathon, himself a native of Bey- 
rout, might be accounted decisive, could the case in other 
respects admit of a question. We read in Scripture that 
the Israelites made Baal-berith their god. " Baal-berith, 
that is," says Bochart, " the idol of Beerith or Berytus," &c. ; 
and as Beerith, in the Hebrew form, is always feminine, he 
thus quotes Sanchoniathon in order to prove that " Beerith, 
like Astarte and Astergetes, was the name of a goddess, 
and not of a god." Among them there was one called Elion, 
that is, the highest, and a woman called Beruth (that is, 
Berith), who dwelt near Byblus (namely, adds Bochart, Be- 
rytus), which was between Byblus and Sidon.* Such evi- 
dence, of unusual precision and force in such matters, might 
have set at rest the question of the origin of the name of 
Berytus, or Beyrout, which is thus bereaved of its chief 
claim to the title of Berothah. 

The name of Beerith — or Berout of the Greeks — whom 
the Israelites worshipped after the death of Joshua, mav 

* Ita hie Tr]v BaaXSepId dicamus res ipsa postulat, quia Hehraice berith 
semper est foemininum. Proinde deae non dei nomenfuit apud Plicenices, ut Astarte 
et Atergates. Quid quod Simchoniathon ita asserit : KaiA tovtovs ylverai tis ^EXiovv 
Ka)<~oiincvos i5i|'icrrof Koi ^I'/Xcia Xcyojxivr] hrjpdvr ; oi Kal Kan^Kovv -nipl Bv6Xov, iis 
aqualis fuit quidam IV^]^ elion, id est, alt.issimus dictus, et fccmina dicta Beruth (id 
est, Berith), qui habitarunt circa Byblum, nejnpe Beryti, quse media est inter Byblum 

Sidoneoi.— Bochart, Phaleg., 775. " 



116 



THE BOUNDARIES OP 



hence supply a reason why the Israelites ceased to drive 
out their enemies before them, and why, therefore, the dis- 
tance was so great between the reputed and real borders of 
the promised land, so that Berytus, though past the one, was 
far short of the other. 

It is needless to enlarge on other and more direct proofs 
that Beyrout is not and cannot be Berothah. 

Were not its maritime position fatal to its claim as the 
north borders of Israel, it would be left far to the south ere 
a man came over against Hamath. But Berothah, along 
with other towns, lies evidently inland, as the entering in of 
Hamath led to them fro?7i the great sea, and is not, like Bey- 
rout, on its beach. It was situated in the kingdom of Ha- 
dad-ezer, which stretched along the Euphrates, and of which 
Phoenicia did not form a portion,* and not, like Beyrout, on 
the Phoenician coast, with the kingdoms of Hamath and 
Damascus intervening. And instead of either reaching the 
defined north border, or having its place on the opposite 
side from the sea, near the great river, Beyrout is above a 
hundred and fifty miles from the north end of the land of 
Hamath, and still farther from the nearest point of the Eu- 
phrates. 

But on that river itself, near to the termination of the 
mountains of Amanus on the east, even as they stretch from 
thence to the great sea on the west, immediately north of 
the embouchure of the Orontes, there still exists an ancient 
town, which has a just title to the derivation which has 
been given to Berytus, without any transmutation, and which 
lacks nothing that can be needed to warrant its recognition 
as the Berothah of Scripture. Beer, or the Euphrates, is 
the Birat of the Arabs, and the Birtha of the Greeks. Beer, 
in the singular, literally signifies a well, and " in the plural, 
in Hebrew, heeroih, or in Arabic, hiraih, wells." It has for 
this very reasonf been conjectured, we think, not without 
cause shown, erroneously, that such was the origin of the 
name of Berytus. But in respect to Beer on the Euphrates, 
no heathen goddess interposes to claim the name as her 
own ; the word has its literal meaning, like Beer in Judea ; 
and conjecture may be dispensed with when proof may be 
seen. Al Birat is described by Abulfeda as a strong and 
impregnable fortress on the banks of the Euphrates. In 

* Nicolas of Damascus, quoted by Joseplius, \nt., vii., 5? 2. 
t Mr. G. Robinson; Travels, vol. ii., p. 32L 



THE PROMISED LAND. 



in 



the note by his learned editor Koehler, the identity of the 
name and place is still more clearly marked. " It cannot 
be doubted," he states, " that this is the same as the Beer 
of Pococke. It is truly the Birtha of Hierocles. It was 
called by the same name by the Syrians, and was the town 
of which Sergius was bishop."* The Birtha, or Birath of 
the Arabs, may thus clearly be identified with the Berothah 
of the Hebrews. And its right to such a name is made 
good by the fact stated by Abulfeda, that it has a valley 
celebrated under the name of Wadi'z Zaituni, or valley of 
olives, which rejoices in trees a.nd fountains. f 

The goings out of the border shall he at Hazar-enan ; this 
shall he your north horder. The horder from the sea shall 
he Hazar-enan. The portion of Dan is assigned. From the 
north end to the coast of the way of Hethlon^ as one goeth to 
Hazaj'-enan, &c. 

Hazar-enan is described as lying to the north northward, 
or far north of Damascus ; and it formed the goings out of 
the north border from the sea ; and as that border necessa- 
rily extended to the River Euphrates, Hazar-enan, it may 
be inferred, reached unto it. 

The kingdom of Hadad-ezer, which David subjected to 
his dominion when he went to recover his border on the 
Euphrates, and within which Berothah lay, constituted the 
northeastern part of Syria, beyond Damascus and Plamath. 
From the power and opulence of its king, from whom David 
took a thousand chariots, seven hundred horsemen, and 
twenty thousand footmen, and the shields of gold that were 
on his servants, it was evidently neither a poor nor diminu- 
tive region. The Euphrates was its border, as well as that 
of the promised land of Israel, and Nicolas, as already quo- 
ted, relates that his kingdom extended over Syria. 

Although the author has sought in vain for the name of 
Hazar-enan in any accessible records concerning that or any 
other region, it is not unworthy of notice that Comagene, 
the extreme region of Syria on the northeast, where it as- 
cended farthest on the Euphrates — on which river the go- 
ings out or termination of the north border necessarily lay 
— bore the name of Azar, as marked in the margin of Ptole- 
my's geography ,J and expressly stated by Adrichomius.^ 

* Abulfeda, Tab. Syr., p. 127. t Ibid. t PtoL, Geogr., lib. v., 15, p. 159. 
§ A Septemptrione quidem Comagena (reg-io Syrioe) hsec propius adjacet Ciliciae, 



118 



THE BOUNDARIES Of 



The name, as thus written, is peculiar to that region, and, 
with the want of the aspirate alone, may be a mere abbre- 
viation of that of Hazar-endiU. It was also called Euphrar 
iensis, as Ptolemy and Adrichomius both relate ; and while 
its position along the Euphrates is thus manifest, it as clear- 
ly lay to the west of that river, being included in Syria, 
and being distinguished from Mesopotamia and Armenia, 
which lay beyond it. Samoisat on the Euphrates, and An- 
tioch near the Taurus, the modern Aintab, were mentioned 
among its cities, which, as Ptolemy, the prince of ancient 
geographers, states, were the first in order on the north of 
Syria, 

According as it fell into the hands of different masters, 
Syria, at various times, was divided into more or fewer 
provinces. Of the five prefectures of Syria, as stated by 
Abulfeda, the first, beginning from the Euphrates, was Kin- 
nesrin, or Kinaserin, which included other provinces be- 
sides Comagene. Kinnesrin, the Colchis of the Greeks 
and the Romans, was more anciently called Soba, and was 
identified with it both by Jewish and Arab writers, as stated 
by the learned Golius, in his notes on Alfergan. And 
hence, after the destruction of that city, when Aleppo be- 
came in its place the metropolis of that province, as for a long 
period of the pachalic, in the bonds and similar writings of 
the Jews of that country, they gave to Aleppo the title of 
Aram Soba, or Soba of Syria.* The kingdom of Zobah 
may thus be identified with the prefecture of Kinnesrin, or 
the pachalic of Aleppo. The mountains of Amanus on the 
north, and the Euphrates on the west, were its natural and 
actual boundaries, as they were also those of Syria. Nic- 
olas of Damascus, as quoted by Josephus, relates that Ha- 
dad-ezer was lord of all Syria (excluding Palestine) except 
PhtBiiicia. And when David had smitten all the host of 
Hadad-ezer, and had garrisoned Damascus, the Syrians be- 
came servants to David,j and his dominion was extended 
over the dominions which he had subdued. 

The site of Hazar-enan, as described in Scripture, is pre- 
cisely accordant with that of the northeastern province of 
Syria. It lay to the north northward, or far north of Da- 
mascus, and it formed the outgoing, or termination on the 



et a vicino sibi fluvio Euphrati, nunc Euphratensis, e.t Euphranis, a barbaris vero 
Azar dicitur. — Adrich., Theat. Sanctce Terrse, p. 96. 
* Golii Arfargan, p. 275. t 1 Chron., xviii., 6. 



THE PROMISED LAND. 



119 



east, of the north borders of Israel, that extended to the Eu 
phraies. Berotkah was a city within Israel's dominion, 
and the outgoings of the border, which it is not said to form, 
might well lie beyond it. And where else could they 
cease but with those of Syria, whose utmost region bore 
the name of Azar, and formed a portion, if not the whole, 
of the kingdom of Zobah, as of the province of Kinnesrin, 
the modern pachalic of Aleppo, to which also Aintab, Sa- 
moisat, and Beer pertain. 

Long after the sceptre of Jerusalem had ceased to be 
swayed over the subservient kingdom of Syria, and ten 
tribes had revolted, and Jews and Benjamites alone bowed 
before the throne of the house of David, and when the 
daughter of Jerusalem cried out aloud, Micah prophesied, 
" Unto thee shall it come, even the first dominion ; the 
kingdom shall come to the daughter of Jerusalem."* War- 
rantably, therefore, may we search foe the border of that 
kingdom where David went to recover hi-s. The Israelites 
assuredly should occupy, as their own inheritance, all the 
land possessed by the Syrians, and in which they served 
David. And as on every other side the promised land 
passed the bounds of Syria, there is still farther cause to 
show why they carmot come short of them on the norih 
harder, where alone, from the want of knowledge of the pre- 
cise localities of some of the various places which seem to 
mark it, proof may appear to be wanting. 

In the scriptural description of the north border, the 
names of various places occur, which hence alone have 
been supposititiously placed along the ancient frontier on 
a line with Dan, which certainly formed it. But the testi- 
mony of Scripture concerning these places requires to be 
definitely marked. 

It is declared that the border from the sea shall be Hazar- 
enan, or, as otherwise expressed, that the goings out of it — 
or the extremity of the north border on the east, or the Eu- 
phrates — shall be at Hazar-enan. And we have seen that 
in that very region, on the opposite end of the same mount- 
ain range, the same province bore the names of Euphraten- 
sis and Azar, and lay within the kingdom of Zobah, which 
David suhdued when he went to recover his border on the 
River Euphrates. 

Other places are spoken of in connexion with the en- 

* Micah, iv., 8. 



120 



THE BOUNDARIES OP 



trance into Hamath, or with the north end of the coast, rath- 
er than as of themselves frontier towns. From the very- 
high mountain pointed out from the sea, ye shall point out 
unto the entrance of Hamath ; and " the goings forth of the 
border shall be to Zedad, and the border shall go on to 
Ziphron,"* &c. " This shall be the border of the land to- 
wards the north side, from the great sea, the way of Heth- 
lon, as men go to Zedad ; Hamath, Berothah, Sibraim, 
which is between the border of Damascus and the border 
of Hamath. "t " From the north end to the coast of the 
way of Hethlon, as one goeth to Hamath, Hazar-enan, the 
border of Damascus northward, to the coast of Hamath, for 
these are his sides east and west, a portion for Dan."| 

Of Berothah, which has its place not only among these 
names, but also among the cities which David took, we 
have already spoken ; and it may here supply an illustra- 
tion, how words that are seemingly incomprehensible may 
be read and understood as most literally true. 

Thus, on the supposition that Beyrout is Berothah, what 
meaning can be attached to these terms, /rom the great sea 
— and as men go to Berothah, when the fact is, that in dis- 
embarking from that sea, men touch it at a step ? But when 
men, even from a distant isle of the Gentiles, purpose to 
go to Beer, or Berothah, and point to Mount Casius as their 
first landmark, and disembark at the entrance of the Oron- 
tes, what do we read of their first work, and of their farther 
progress, when, as in the case of the Euphrates Expedi- 
tion, they pass from the Mediterranean to Beer on the Eu- 
phrates ? 

" In the neighbourhood of Amelia dep6t the points of 
most interest were the course of the Orontes, examined by 
Lieutenant Cleveland, Messrs. Eden, Calderwood, and Fitz- 
James, &c. These gentlemen, in conjunction with Messrs. 
Hector and Bell, were in turns employed on different points, 
repairiiig and ividening the road from the mouth of the Oron- 
tes to Antioch, &c. Lieutenant Lynch was employed in 
improving the line of route from Antioch by Jisr Hadid to 
Bir'-'^ (Beer). 

Few such words form a clear and conclusive comment- 
ary ; and, thus passed by British engineers, the road from 

* Ezek., xlviii., 1. t Num., xxxiv., 8, 9. t Ezek., xlvii., 15, 16. 

^ Colonel Chesney on fhe Expedition to the Euphrates, Geogr. Journal, vol. vii,, 
p. 415, 



THE PROMISED LAND. 



121 



tlie entrance into Hamatli, and from thence as men go io Be- 
roihali, may no longer be a mystery among biblical critics. 

But other cities are named besides Berothah, though in 
other directions, to which the same entrance led from the 
sea. 

From the great sea, the way of Hethlon, as men go io Ze- 
dad, Hadad, Berothah, &;c. From the north end to the 
coast of the way of Hethlon, as one goeth to Hamath, Hazar- 
enan, &c. 

From the same point different lines of communication, 
" roads," or " lines of ronte," led to the north, and in other 
directions, as well as to the east; to Hamath, &c., as well 
as to Berothah. 

It is a remarkable peculiarity of the entrance into Ha- 
math, that there is no other on the north or on the west 
by which to pass, without crossing mountains, from the 
Mediterranean. For this reason it was chosen by Colonel 
Chesney, and fixed on by Bonaparte, when he purposed to 
go to the Euphrates. "In 1811," says Colonel Chesney, 
" Napoleon had prepared a fleet at Toulon, which was to 
have disembarked a large force in this bay ; and M. Vin- 
cent Germain was waiting at Antioch for the expected 
troops, which had, in the mean time, been marched to Rus- 
sia instead of taking the route from Suweidiyah to India. 
Marash was to have been the centre of his operations, prob- 
ably on account of the fine forests near that town ; but as 
the Beilan Mountains would have furnished plenty of fine 
timber close at hand, it is not likely that this great captain 
would have gone to Marash, when 110 miles through Anti- 
och and Aleppo would have placed him at Beles, 200 7n?les 
lower down the river. There is reason to presume that Bo- 
naparte meant to carry his troops down the river to Basrah. 
But the Russian campaign put an end to this."* 

Whether men were to go from the Mediterranean to Beer 
or to Beles, the route lay through the entrance into Hamath. 
And that entrance had to be passed in like manner in going 
from the north end of the land of Israel, and advancing 
southward to Hamath, or to the border of Damascus. In 
the former direction there is a plain which spreads forth to- 
wards ancient towns on the Euphrates ; and in the latter, 
the valley of the Orontes, into which, though wholly shut 
in by a hill-country from access to the sea, other valleys 

* Geograph. Journal, vol. viii., p. 234. 



122 



THE BOUNDARIES OF 



and plains open to the eastward. The termination of the 
entrance into Hamath is thus a radiating point, from which 
various lines of communication stretched out to distant and 
widely-separated cities. Thus, when the Euphrates Ex- 
pedition passed through the entrance into Hamath, a new 
road was not made, even for the transit of very heavy mate- 
rials, but the old road was widened and repaired ; and 
again from Antioch to Bir the line of route was improved. 
In like manner, in going from the same entrance, or from 
the north end of the land, and, consequently, southward, an 
ancient Itinerary* shows the way, and marks the distances 
from Antioch to Hamath, between which cities there was 
a Roman, and, doubtless, more ancient road. A view of 
the valley of the Orontes, near to Apamea, given in Burck- 
hardt's map, shows a " Roman road" passing through its 
centre, and which is marked at the southern extremity of 
the chart, the road to Hamah. 

Sudud, a large village, situated to the northwest of Pal- 
myra, and north of a mountain range that stretches eastward 
in the direction of that ancient city, was visited by Mr. Eli 
Smith in 1834, and identified by him with Zedad. Two 
mountain ranges lie between it and the Mediterranean ; but, 
if the writer errs not, it may be reached without passing one, 
by the valley of the Orontes. It is marked by Mr. Smith 
in the list of names of places between Deir Atiych and Ed- 
Deir on the Euphrates.! 

The site of Hethlon, or of any city of that name, is un- 
known. The manner in which it is mentioned, in the only 
two places in which it occurs in Scripture, in connexion 
with Zedad and Hamath, is deserving of notice. " From 
the great sea, the way of Hethlon, as men go to Zedad, 
Hamath," &c. The definition of the border of Dan thus 
begins. " From the north end to the coast by the way of 
Hethlon, as one goeth to Hamah,''^ <fcc. The first letter of 
the name Hethlon being n, cheth, not n, he, Chethlon would 
be the more correct pronunciation. Abulfeda speaks of a 
mountain, or hill, Al Chaith,j near Apamea, in the valley 
of the Orontes. And in the view given by Burckhardt of 
that part of the valley, a village is marked, called Houyeih 
(evidently the same name, and in the same locality, as that 



* Itin. Antonini. 

t Robinson and Smith's Researches in Palostine, vol. iii., App., p. 174. i 
X Abulfedae, Tab. Syris, p 123, 223. 



i^He promised land. 



12S 



liientioned by Abulfeda), and also a small lake, Ayn Houyetli, 
beside which passed the Roman road from Antioch to Ha- 
math. "h, In^ lun, signifies to stay or abide, &c., as a name 
derived from it, Me-lnn, a place to lodge and stay in (2 
Kings, xix., 23 ; Josh., iv., 8), and the name may have thus 
suffered abbreviation. Chaith lay in the way from the en- 
trance into Hamath, both to Zedad and Hamath ; though, 
after passing it, the way by v/hich men went, and may yet 
go, to the former likely diverged to the eastward. 

Sibraim and Hazar-hatticon are also unknown ; but the 
former lay between the border of Damascus and the border 
of Hamath^ and the other on the coast of Hauran. They 
were cities to which men went from the north end of the 
land, but, obviously, they did not form part of it. The 
Hauran here named is supposed to have been the same as 
Aurana of Ptolemy, a town on the Euphrates, as noted in 
the margin in various editions of his Geography.* The 
only name at all similar to Sibraim, which the author has 
been able to discover, is that of a village, or ruined town, 
in the mountains of Rieha, in Burckhardt's list,t Zer Szab- 
ber, the plural termination of which in Hebrew would be 
Szabberim. Were it the Sibraim, which is between the 
border of Damascus and the border of Hamath, though the 
entrance into the land would remain unaltered, the fact 
would be in accordance with the opinion of the Jews, that 
Antioch, not Epiphania, was the capital of Hamath. 

The only other place named is Ziphron, of which it is 
peculiarly said. And the border shall go on to Ziphron. It 
would seem to be still unascertained. Jerome supposed it 
to be Zephurium on the Cilician coast. | If such it were, 
the passes of the Taurus would be in the harids of the Is- 
raelites ; and the region of Adana, on the Cilician coast, by 
contending for which Mohammed Ali lost Syria, would be a 
portion of the coast of Israel, without their passing the 
mountain chain of Taurus and Amanus. 

The Taurus or Amanus were believed by the Jews to be 
the Hor-ha-hor of vScripture, and were thus held by them to 
be the northern frontier of the land promised to their fathers. 
But, though Hor-ha-hor admits of a more precise definition, 
the idea that the Amanus, which Jerome adopted, was the 
north border of Israel, is, as we have seen, warranted by 
many other facts. Biblical critics and geographers, such 

* Ptolem., lib, v., c. 19. t Burck., Syria, p. 130. * Tom., v., p. 598. 



124 



THE BOUNDARIES OF 



as Bociiart, Poole, Cellarius, Reland, &:c.,in looking alon^ 
to the ancient borders, and utterly disowning any other, stig- 
matized the idea as absurd and " ridiculous," as assuredly 
it would have been had the borders of the land in which the 
Israelites dwelt, and that which the Lord promised to Abra- 
ham, been one and the same. In not distinguishing things 
that differ, they overlooked the covenant and the promi- 
ses of God ; and in ridiculing what they accounted Jewish 
pretensions as idle fables, though these were false in respect 
to the past, they forgot that, in respect to the future, this ar- 
rogance was theirs — while they denied that Israel had any 
part in Amanus — a wiser than Solomon is here ! 

Solomon's dominion, though only the image-^oi that which 
shall yet be restored to Israel, may serve as the measure of 
its borders. The sovereign lord of Hamath and of Zobah, 
and of cities on the Euphrates beyond them, was not ignorant 
of Amana (or Amanus), nor does he keep silence concern- 
ing it in his prophetic song. The figure is common to the 
prophets, that, as the bridegroom rejoiceth over his bride, so 
will the Lord rejoice over Israel. The very land shall be 
called Beulah, or married. " Go," saith the prophet, " and 
proclaim these words towards the north, and say. Return, 
thou backsliding Israel, saith the Lord ; and I will not cause 
mine anger to fall upon you 5 for I am merciful, saith the Lord, 
and I will not keep anger forever. Turn, O backsliding 
children, saith the hovd, for I am married unto you. I will 
bring you unto Zion. At that time they shall call Jerusalem 
the throne of the Lord."* Israel is " the married vvife."t 
How aptly to these words of the prophets do those also of 
Solomon apply: " Come with me from Lebanon, my syoiise, 
with me from Lebanon ; look from the top of Amana.''^X 

The mountains of Amanus, as Strabo relates, extend from 
the Mediterranean to the Euphrates. They formed the 
northern boundary of Syria, the northernmost of whose lands 
were those of Hamath and of the kingdom of Hadad-ezer on 
the Euphrates, within which was Berothah. They were 
thus from end to end the northern and natural boundary of 
the dominion of David and Solomon, as also of Syria, which 
they separated from Cilicia. Beir is distant, in a direct line, 
a hundred and thirty-three miles from the mouth of the Oron- 
tes, and touching the one on the entrance into Hamath on the 
west, and bordering also on the east with the other, the range 

* Jer., iii., 12, 14, 17. t Isa., Ivi., 1. X Song- of Solomon, iii., 8. 



THE PROMISED LAND. 



125 



of Amanus is Nature's own barrier, which shuts in the land, 
and forms a boundary defined as any can be. Amanus, says 
Cotovicus, who himself looked from the top of it, as we shall 
hereafter see, extends for a great space like an overhanging 
wall, and separates Cilicia from Assyria — Amanus instar 
muri imminentissimi, per longissima spatia sese extendit et 
CiUciam a Syria dislerminat.^ Such a noble Alpine barri- 
er from the east side to the west side is a worthy boundary 
of " the glorious land ;" and it hems in at once all the land 
of the Canaanites, all the land of the Giblites, all the land 
of Hamath, and the ancient kingdom of Hadad-ezer, while 
the entrance into Hamath is its scriptural witness on one 
side, and Berothah on the other. Fronting Mount Casius, 
near the base of which is Laodicea, in the land of the Ar- 
vadites, it forms the north end of that land ; fronting also the 
wider valley of the Orontes in the interior, it forms the north 
end of the land of Hamath, and turns back its river, though 
long " rebellious" and reversed, and sends it at length direct 
towards the sea ; while on the east it reaches towards the Eu- 
phrates, and a high mountain range passes that river above 
Bir, to which the Euphrates is navigable from the Persian 
Gulf. From that river to the uttermost sea (or the extremity, 
may we not say, of the Mediterranean on the north, for there 
the Euphrates most nearly approaches it), a mountain chain 
extends, which, though with separate branches, forms a con- 
tinuous barrier. Of the Amanus and Rhosus, or the Jawur 
Dagh and Akma Dagh, Mr. Ainsworth states, that " the two 
chains are nominally separated by the pass of Beilan ; but 
they are, in reality, continuous with one another. The 
Jawur Dagh attains a greater altitude than the Akma Dagh, 
the cuhuinating points being to the north. The average 
elevation of the Akma Dagh is a little more than 5000 feet 
above the Mediterranean ; that of the Jawur Dagh is from 
5000 to 6000 feet."t The pass of Beilan, instead of being 
a valley with a navigable stream like that of the Orontes on 
the lip of the ocean, is 1584 feet above the Mediterranean.:}: 
Here, then, at the termination of the plain of Phoenicia 
and the land of Hamath, is a boundary which is as marked 
as that of the Nile ; and the geographical features of the 
land unite with the scriptural records in proof that it is also 
a boundary along all the north end of the land, respecting 
which, as was said of that river, " there can be no dispute." 

* Cotaici Itin., p. 502. + Ainsworth's Assyria, p. 313. X Ibid., note, : 

L 3 



126 



THE BOUNDARIES OP 



But if there should be any doubt or dispute, both might 
vanish at the word Amana, as written in the holy oracles, 
like many others, ybr a time to come. In prophetic vision, if 
not in fact — we believe, assuredly, the former — Zion's king 
could speak of looking, not alone, from the top of Amana. 
In either case, the conclusion is irresistible, that the land 
of Israel, intercepted by no other, was from thence in imme- 
diate view. And as Antioch was said to be the opex of 
Syria, the word Amana may crown the argument that the 
border of Israel is here. 

Though that word occurs but once in Scripture, it is as- 
sociated, as we have seen, with a figure common to the 
prophets, and which recurs again and again in the Old Tes- 
tament and in the New, the significancy of which admits 
not of a doubt. And we are tauoht to look from what Israel 
is, to what Israel shall be when the Lord shall be unto her a 
husband again. 

" I will make her that halteth a remnant, and her that was 
cast far off a strong nation, and the Lord shall reign over 
them in Mount Zion from henceforth, even forever. And 
thou, O tower of the flock, the stronghold of the daughter of 
Zion, unto thee shall it come, even the first dominion ; the 
kingdom shall come to the daughter of Jerusalem."* Solo- 
mon, in the full extent of his kingdom, and in all his glory, 
could not utter words that shall not be realized in greater 
glory then. And when the first dominion and the kingdom 
shall come to the daughter of Jerusalem, and that city shall 
be called the throne of the Lord, and when she shall put on 
her beautiful garments, and be adorned like a bride for her 
husband, who that has passed from Dan to the north end of 
Hamath, without touching a foot of ground that is not, ac- 
cording to the covenant, Israelitish soil, and sees the mount- 
ains of Amanus, with the sought-for entrance on the shores 
of the Mediterranean on the one end, and Berothah on the 
banks of the Euphrates on the other, can say that Israel's 
heritage does not reach to the natural frontier of Syria on 
the north 1 And although, in past times, biblical critics, 
groping darkly around the ancient limits, controverted the 
testimony of the heirs of the promise, and denied that the 
borders of Israel reach to Amanus, what power on earth can 
controvert the word, or frustrate the purpose of the Lord, 
when, as if himself declaring the difference between the an- 

* Micah, iv., 7, 8. 



THE PROMISED LAND. 



127 



cient and everlasting borders of his people, He shall say to 
Israel, as her husband and her king, " Come with me from 
Lebanon, my spouse, with me from Lebanon ; look with me 
from the top of Amana, from the top of Shenir and Hermon ?" 
Who can say that, in obeying the command, she would pass 
her proper borders, though Dan were left far behind ; or 
look on any other land than her own between Amana and 
Lebanon ? And who, beholding the mountain range, as it 
rises high like a bounding wall, may not conceive a literal 
signilicancy in the description of the land as a garden en- 
closed, as these everlasting hills await the time when the land 
shall be, as other prophets tell, like the garden of the Lord ? 

SECTION IV. 

THE SOUTH BORDER. 

Having passed far beyond Dan in search of the north- 
ern frontier, it is not at Beersheba that we are to look 
for that of the south. Yet here, again, the conflicting 
opinion has to be met, that Israel has no other bound- 
aries than those of old ; and the bounds that were set 
on the south, as those of the inheritance of the Israelites 
when they entered Canaan, have been held as identified 
with the utmost limits of the kingdom of Israel. 

But not only did the sentence go forth against the 
Israelites, when they proved faithless in the covenant, 
and when they were slack to go in and possess the land, 
that the Lord would no more drive out their enemies 
before them, but their prescribed borders on their first 
entrance were not the same as those which the promises 
of God have set around their final and everlasting in- 
heritance. Ammon and Moab, beyond Jordan and the 
Dead Sea, lay to the south of the trans-Jordanic tribes. 
Concerning the south boundary of the other tribes, it is 
thus written : " The Lord spake unto Moses, saying, 
Command the children of Israel, and say unto them, 
when ye come unto the land of Canaan, then your south 
quarter shall be from the wilderness of Zin along by the 
coast of Edom, and your south border shall be the out- 
most coast of the salt sea eastward, and your border 
shall turn from the south to the ascent of Akrabbim, and 
pass on to Zin : and the going forth thereof shall be (lom 
the south to Kadesh-barnea,"* &c. 

* Numb., xxxiv., 1-4. 



128 



THE BOUNDARIES OF 



The salt sea, the outermost coast of which anciently- 
formed a boundary on the souths is doubtless the Dead 
Sea, "in the vale of Siddim."* When the Israelites 
passed the Jordan, " the waters that came down towards 
the sea of the plain, even the salt sea, failed,"! The 
whole land of Edom was thus excluded. And the bor- 
der was then set at the distance of at least a degree and 
a half of latitude, or, in a line directly north, more than 
a hundred miles from the nearest point of the Red Sea, 
by which the Lord had promised to set the bounds of 
Israel. 

Joshua recorded the words of the Lord touching: the 
southern border of the land when the Israelites under 
the law entered Canaan. Ezekiel records that which 
the Lord hath said, in declaring what are the borders 
whereby Israel shall inherit the land, concerning which 
the Lord lifted up his hand unto their fathers, ^nd the 
south side southward, from Tamar even unto the waters of 
strife in Kadesh, the river to the great sea.X 

That Kadesh lay to the south of Edom may be clear 
from those passages of Scripture in which it is spoken of 
in connexion with the Red Sea. Kadesh was the inter- 
mediate station between Ezion-gaber and Mount Hor, as 
the multitudinous hosts of Israel advanced to the south 
border of Edom. " They removed from Ezion-gaber, and 
pitched in the wilderness of Zin, which is Kadesh. J^nd 
they removed from Kadesh, and pitched in Mount Hor, in 
the edge of the land of Edom.^''§ And after their long 
wanderings in the desert had ended, and the time had 
come when the Edomites dared no longer refuse them 
a passage through their coast, their departure from Ka- 
desh is thus narrated: "So ye abode in Kadesh many 
days. Then we turned, and took our journey into the 
wilderness, by the way of the Red Sea^ as the Lord spake 
unto me ; and we compassed Mount Seir many days. 
And the Lord spake unto me, saying. Ye have compass- 
ed this mountain long enough : turn you northward. 
And command thou the people, saying, Ye are to pass 
through the coast of your brethre?i, the children of Esau, 
which dwell in Seir, and they shall be afraid of you : 
meddle not with them,"|| &c. From Kadesh they took 



* Genesis, xiv., 3. t Joshua, iii,, 16. 

^ Numb., xxxiii., 36, 37. 



t Ezekiel, xlvii., 19. 
II Deut., i., 46 ; ii., 1-5. 



THE PROMISED LAND. 



129 



their journey by the way of the Red Sea, and they pass- 
ed northward (or from the south) through the coast of 
the Edomites. And the same journey, when over, is 
thus described: "When we passed by from our breth- 
ren the children of Esau, which dwelt in Seir, through 
the way of the plain from Elath and from Ezion-gaber^ 
we turned and passed by the way of the wilderness of 
Moab."* 

There is thus a perfect accordance between the ex- 
clusion of Edom at a time when the children of Judah 
were not to receive so much as a foot-breadth of that 
land, and the appointment of the Dead Sea for their bor- 
der ; and also, on the other hand, between the prophetic 
annunciation that Edom shall be a possession, and the 
promise that the Lord will set their bounds, not, as of 
old, by the Dead Sea, but by the Red Sea. There is, too, 
a strictly analogous diversity between the inheritance of 
Israel with Beersheba for its southern extremity, and the 
kingdom of Solomon, with Ezion-gaber as his port, or the 
journeying of the Israelites from Kadesh by the way of 
the Red Sea and of the plain from Eloth and Ezion-ga- 
ber. Edom was tributary to David and to Solomon, and 
owned their supremacy. But, great as was the glory of 
the kingdom of Israel then, it only prefigured a greater. 
And the kingdom yet to be restored cannot be circum- 
scribed by narrower bounds, or acknowledge as its own, 
on the south any more than on the north, the ancient 
border of Judah or of Dan. 

Thus obviously the future and actual allocation of the 
tribes, when, under the everlasting covenant, they shall 
inherit the land, is altogether different from that which 
subsisted at a time when they were expressly prohibit- 
ed from occupying as their own the smallest portion of 
the lands of Edom, or Moab, or Ammon, whose territo- 
ries are as expressly and ultimately assigned to them, as 
included in the promises. 

Joshun, who held forth the law like an iron rod, spake 
not concerning the borders of the tribes of Israel as did 
Ezekiel the prophet, who, as a herald, bore the banner 
of a better covenant. In Joshua's days, seven tribes, or 
more than half of Israel, had not received their inherit- 
ance. That of Judah was planted as its lot was cast, on 

* Deut,, ii., 8, 



130 



THE BOUNDARIES OF 



the southern extremity of the land which was then as- 
signed them. No other tribe lay between it and the 
coast of Edom, or the extremity of the Dead Sea, to the 
south of which the restricted border of Israel did not 
pass. But when the twelve tribes shall all inherit the 
land, and each have its portion, the one as well as the 
other, according to the covenant of God with their 
fathers, the lot shall not be cast as on their first en- 
trance into Canaan, but beyond its bounds, as well as in- 
cluding all the land of the Canaanites ; every tribe shall 
possess its inheritance as that of each has been appoint- 
ed, successively from north to south, and extending 
from east to west, as the Lord himself has assigned 
them. Judah is his lawgiver, and shall still inherit Je- 
rusalem. But the kingdom shall be rent no more. And 
the portion of Judah has its appointed place, not on the 
outskirts of the other tribes, but rather in the centre, 
with six tribes to the north, and five to the south. Of 
its relative position in regard to the last of these, we read, 
" The border of Judah, from the east side to the west 
side, &c. As for the rest of the tribes, from the east side 
unto the west side, Benjamin shall have a portion. And 
by the border of Benjamin, from the east side unto the 
west side, Simeon shall have a portion. And by the 
border of Simeon, from the east side unto the west side, 
Issachar a portion. And by the border of Zebulon, from 
the east side unto the west side. Gad a portion. And 
by the border of Gad, at the south side southward, the 
border shall be even from Tamar unto the waters of 
strife in Kadesh, and to the river towards the great sea. 
This is the land which ye shall divide by lot unto the 
tribes of Israel for inheritance, and these are their por- 
tions, saith the Lord God."* 

But the fixing of the south border of the land respects 
not these regions alone, or the length of the land of 
Edom, against which the sentence of desolation has gone 
forth ; but, by the extension of the bounds of Israel from 
the Dead Sea, as they were fixed in the covenant made 
under the law, to the Ked Sea, by which they shall be 
set, an equal space to that of the difference in latitude 
between these seas is thereby included from north to 

* Ezekiel, xlviii., 23-29. 



THE rilOMISSD LAND. 



131 



south, throughout all the breadth of the land, where it 
is measured by more than a thousand miles. 

The separate portions of each and all of the tribes of 
Israel, as appointed by the Lord, but never yet possess- 
ed for a day, beghming from the north, extend succes- 
sively, in obviously parallel departments, from the east side 
to the west side^ till the boundary line of the last passes 
through Kadesh, and touches the Red Sea. Were the 
site of that town midway between that of Ezion-gaber 
and Mount Hor, as its intermediate station might indi- 
cate, still a line from east to west, passing through it, 
would touch the northern point of the Gulf of Suez, on 
the one side before reaching the Nile, and that of the 
Persian Gulf upon the other, where the Euphrates enters 
it. But, situated as Kadesh was, to the south of Edom, 
and journeying, as Israel did, from thence at the com- 
mand of the Lord, by the way of the Eed Sea, through 
the way of the plain from Elath, and from Ezion-gaber 
on the Elanitic Gulf of that sea, the latter town, which 
was a port of Solomon's, may rightfully pertain to the 
kingdom to be restored to Israel, and form the border 
©f the inheritance, or the bounds by which they were 
set. And within such bounds, extending in all the lat- 
itude which the Lord has given them, who can tell how 
many thousands of the seed of Jacob shall find ample 
space in the five portions south of that of Judah, when 
the word of the Lord to Abraham shall be fulfilled, and 
the River of Egypt to the great sea^ and the River Eu- 
phrates, be the borders of the inheritance of Israeli 

As the south border cannot come short of the Red 
Sea, by w^hich the Lord hath set it, so neither, in pass- 
ing from the east side to the west side, can it come 
short of the west bank of the Euphrates. 

There is a remarkable coincidence in the respective 
latitudes of the northern extremities of the Red Sea, 
and of the Persian Gulf, into w^iich the Euphrates flows. 
Suez is 30° 10', Ailah 29° 33', on the shore of the Elan- 
itic Gulf. The Euphrates enters the Persian Gulf in 
lat. 30°.* 

The reader, directing his eye across the map, may 
thus point out for himself the bounding line along the 
south sid^ pf Israel's inheritance. 

Map Ainsworth's Assyria. 



132 



THE BOUNDARIES OF 



Though not essential to our subject, the remark may 
here be pardonable, that while upon the north a mount- 
ain range, rising like a lofty wall, divides the inherit- 
ance of Israel from the land of the Gentiles, and sets a 
most conspicuous barrier between them^ nothing but an 
ideal line, though well defined, passes along the open 
southern frontier. But, unlike the other, that line sep- 
arates between none but the seed of Abraham \ and the 
Lord has not placed a mountainous barrier or any other 
there. The covenant has respect to the time when 
Hagar's son shall be brought back to Abraham's house 
— the ho isehold of the faithful — though not to Israel's 
peculiar heritage. The children of the bondwoman, in 
bondage no longer, shall rejoice together with the free. 
Kedar and Nebaioth were sons of Ishmael. And con- 
cerning Israel, when returned unto their God, and to the 
land which He hath given them, it is said, " Jill the. 
flocks of Kedar shall he gathered together unto thee^ the rams 
of J^ehaioth shall minister unto thee ; they shall come up 
with acceptance on mine altar ^ and I will glorify the house 
of my glory.''''* When the promise was given that the 
everlasting covenant would be established with Isaac, it 
was not in vain that Abraham prayed unto God : " O that 
Ishmael may live before thee !" For the answer was 
given, "As for Ishmael, I have heard thee. Behold, I 
have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will 
multiply him exceedingly ; twelve princes shall he beget, 
and I will make him a great nation."! The promise of 
the Lord was not forgotten, though Hagar and her son 
— types of their descendants through many ages — were 
cast out to wander in the wilderness. The Arabs boast 
of their descent from Ishmael, as do the Israelites of 
theirs from Jacob. Abraham was their common father j 
and, as descended from him, they all are brethren. 
Hitherto the fate of the Arab has been strikingly pro- 
phetic, as was the character of Ishmael, as given by the 
angel of the Lord before his birth — a wild man, whose 
hand was against every rnaii, and every man's hand 
against him. But the prophetic word did not stop with 
the enunciation of the character of his wild and warlike 
race. A blessing follows it, more in consonance with 
the blessing of the Lord on Ishmael. The continupd 

* Isaiah, Ix., 7, t Gen., xvii,, 20. 



THE PROMISED LAND. 



133 



independence of his descendants, marked as it has been, 
instead of being, as heretofore accounted, the sole com- 
pletion of the promise, may prove but secondary, as pre- 
paratory to its full accomplishment, when the very 
words, in which the blessing to both the sons of Abra- 
ham shall themselves tell, in the simplicity of truth, 
their full significancy, and even as Israel's seed shall 
possess the land, Ishmael's — their wildness and their 
wanderinofs ceased, and the desert itself a desert no 
more — shall dwell in the presence of their brethren* And 
thus it is, we may warrantably say, that on the south 
border, v/here they meet, there is no barrier between 
them — no physical obstacle in the way, when all moral 
obstacles shall be removed, to hinder the flocks of Ne- 
baioth and of Kedar from going freely — without either 
a mountain range or a stream to be passed, as on the 
other sides — as an offering unto the Lord, into the land 
of Israel. That the brotherly covenant was broken be- 
tween Jacob and Esau, the desolation of Edom shall tell 
forever. But that it never was broken between Isaac and 
Ishmael, the free ingress and egress to each other's 
lands may be as enduring a memorial. 

When Abraham dwelt in Mesopotamia, God said unto 
him, Get thee into a land that I will show thee. He heard, 
believed, and went. When Isaac's name, a year before 
his birth, was told him by the Lord, and the promise 
made with Am, the pitying father pled for the son he 
already had, and whom he loved : and Ishmael too was 
blessed; the prayer was heard that he might live before 
the Lord. Abraham, in sending Hagar away, took bread 
and a bottle of water, and put it on her shoulder. Thus 
she departed, and going southward, wandered in the wil- 
derness of Beer-sheba.f Her seed, according to the 
word of the angel, has multiplied exceedingly, that it 
cannot be numbered for multitude. [f Abraham himself 
individually has a blessing in the covenant, distinct from 
the promise of the inheritance to his seed ; and spirit- 
ual blessings, not limited to any race, but branching 
forth in rich fruitfulness to all, are also involved in it, 
as they formed its final end. Of these it is not our 
present province to speak. But, standing on the south- 
ern portion of Israel, between the families of Abraham's 

Geo., xvi., 12, t Gen,, xxi., 14. | Ibid,, xvi,, 10, 

M 



134 



THE BOUNDARIES OF 



two sons, as they shall yet be seen by a world blessed 
in the seed of Isaac, who so blind as not to perceive 
how rich is the promise to faith and the answer to 
prayer 1 The River of Egypt to the sea, its shores to 
the entrance into Hamath, the Amanian Mountains ri- 
sing like a wall, and extending from the Mediterranean 
to the Euphrates, that great river, the Persian Gulf, into 
which it flows, the Arabian Sea, and the Red Sea, en- 
close the united territory of the two sons of Abraham, 
which forms no mean part of the habitable globe. No 
region can be more definitely marked than that which 
thus pertains, by covenanted title, to the seed of Isaac, 
and that which pertains in actual possession, as Arabia 
does, to the seed of Ishmael. 

SECTION V. 

THE EAST BORDER. 

The only question farther to be resolved respecting 
the borders of the promised land, is that concerning the 
respective boundaries on the east of these two families 
of Abraham. 

Were the northern and southern borders of Israel tru- 
ly ascertained, those on the east, like those on the west, 
formed not of land, but of water, either a great river or 
the sea, would be easily determined. 

The heritage of Jacob, as oft repeated in the original 
covenant, extends from the River of Egypt to the Eu- 
phrates, and also, on the north, from the Euphrates to 
the uttermost sea. That great river from Berothah, or 
the extremity of the land in which it stands, necessari- 
ly forms the boundary on the east. This is not only ex- 
pressed in the promise, but has been manifested in fact. 
David, whose throne shall be established forever, re- 
covered the borders of his kingdom on the Euphrates ; 
and Solomon, who also reigned over all Israel, maintain- 
ed a supremacy and sovereignty over all the kings on 
the east of the Euphrates. If the heart of that mon- 
arch, who once was wise, because in faith he asked for 
wisdom, had been steadfast in the covenant, and had 
not departed from the Lord, his kingdom would not 
have been rent in the hands of his son, as was the gar- 
ment of Jeroboam by the prophet of the Lord, But 



THE PROMISED LAND. 



135 



from his history, and that of his father David, it plainly 
appears, that whenever a gleam of hope broke in upon 
the dark and evil days that summed up the history of 
an else rebellious race, in which the covenant was shroud- 
ed from view, no other borders were recognised by these 
two kings, who alone reigned in Jerusalem over all Is- 
rael, than the Lord had assigned, whether from the shores 
of the Red Sea to the entrance into Hamath, or from 
the River of Egypt to the Euphrates ; and they rested 
not from maintaining their dominion till all the kings on 
that side of the Euphrates owned their sovereignty. 

The east border necessarily commences where it first 
comes in contact with the north on that river, and it 
can terminate only at the eastern extremity of the south 
border. How far it ascended the Euphrates we have 
already seen j and its point of contact with that of the 
south alone remains to be shown. 

Let a line be drawn from the Nile in a straight line, 
east and west, setting the bounds by the Red Sea, and it 
will be apparent that, v/hether the Gulf of Suez, or the 
Elanitic Gulf, be only touched, the southeastern border 
of the land of promise is not reached till the Euphrates 
pours its streams into the Persian Gulf. 

After describing the north border, Ezekiel adds, j3?id 
the east side ye shall measure from Hauran, and from Da- 
mascus, and from Gilead, and from the land of Israel by 
Jordan, from the border to the east sea. ^nd this is 
the east side. 

It is too late, we trust, to tell the reader, as comment- 
ators of great name have said, that the east sea is the 
Dead Sea, because it lies to the east of Jerusalem. 
Were there any truth in this, the previous pages would 
be the record of a dream, and "the breadth of Imman- 
uel's land," instead of a thousand, would be restricted, 
at the utmost, to sixty miles ; and skeptics might still 
scoff at the diminutive inheritance. But in the record 
concerning the borders of the land, as anciently pos- 
sessed, the Dead Sea is unquestionably mentioned un- 
der its proper scriptural name of the Salt Sea ; and 
though on its northern extremity it did lie to the east 
of Jerusalem, it is nowhere in Scripture denominated 
the east sea. Even at the time when it formed, on the 
extreme south, the southern border of Judah, instead 



136 



THE BOUNDARIES OF 



of being- the east side^ two tribes and a half of Israel had 
their wide portions wholly to the eastward of it, and of 
the Jordan which flowed into it, not from the west, 
but from the north. And whatever was its relative po- 
sition to Jerusalem, it never had a name from hence ; 
and if it had, yet from the Hauran, and the land of Is- 
rael by Jordan, which, even in ancient days, reached of 
right to the Euphrates, the Dead Sea lay to the west, 
and not to the east. From the Hauran^ and Damascus^ 
and from Gilead, and the land of Israel by [beyond) Jordan, 
all the land, according to the covenant, and to the do- 
minion of David and Solomon, pertained to Israel on 
that side the Euphrates. And, according to the pro- 
phetic definition given by Ezekiel of the east side in all 
its length, from the border (the north border, Avhich he 
had immediately before specified) to the east sea, the east 
side and the south side thus terminated in the same sea, 
the Persian Gulf, which is worthy of the name, for where 
the Euphrates enters it, it is far wider than the Eed Sea. 

As the west side is marked ^roTTi the border till a man 
come over against Hamath, or, as otherwise defined, to 
the entrance into Hamath, and the extreme breadth of 
the northern boundary from the River Euphrates to the 
uttermost sea, and the whole breadth of the land where 
widest in its southern region, from the River of Egypt 
to the great River Euphrates, so, as alone wanting to 
determine the length of all the borders, that on the east 
is defined, in all its extent, from the border to the east sea. 

The east sea is here represented as the terminating 
point, on the extreme south, of the east border, precise- 
ly as the entrance into Hamath, or the mountains which 
bound it, forms the termination of the western border 
on the north. A corresponding definition is thus given 
of both sides of the land : in the one case, from the 
border on the south to the entrance into Hamath ; and, 
on the other, /ro??2. the border on the north to the east sea. 

When "the tenants" of the rock in Kedar's wilder- 
ness afar shall sing the praises of Israel's God, and o-o, 
like men from all nations of the earth, with their offer- 
ings to Jerusalem, to worship there ; and when fountains 
shall spring up in the desert, and the thirsty land be 
as a pool of water, the sons of Ishmael — though, like 
that at which. Hagar sat, they can now cgunt every well 



THE PROMISED LAND. 



137 



of the desert their own — will not then, as did Lot's ser- 
vants with Abraham's, dispute with the restored and re- 
deemed sons of Jacob about a well or a border. 

The borders which the Lord hath set are such that 
they cannot fail to be finally recognised by all the sons 
of Adam, as well as by the descendants of Abraham. 
If a question should arise respecting their limits, it 
could only be with Assyria or Egypt — how far they 
might extend on the Euphrates, or penetrate into the 
land of the Pharaohs, if the term were questionable, on 
the River of Egypt. But higher destinies than those 
even of such renowned kingdoms, in all their ancient 
power and pre-eminence among nations, are resolved 
in the allotment of the territorial patrimony of the seed 
of Jacob. And the Lord their God, who grave the land 
unto them for an everlasting possession, has secured it 
against the interference of another Sennacherib, or Neb- 
uchadnezzar, or Pharaoh. The time is yet to come of 
which it is said, "In that day shall there be a highway 
out of Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian shall come 
into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria; and the 
Egyptians shall serve with the ^^ssyrians. In that day 
shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assj^ria, 
even a blessing in the midst of the land (or the earth) ; 
whom the Lord of Hosts shall bless, saying, Blessed be 
Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, 
and Israel mine inheritance."* 

In the beginning of their history the Israelites were 
slaves in Egypt, as their fathers had been strangers in 
the land of promise. In after ages, the kingdom of Is- 
rael, as distinct from that of Judah, was destroyed by 
the hosts of the King of Assyria, and ever since the ten 
tribes have been the outcasts of Israel. In later times, 
prior to the destruction of Jerusalem and the dispersion 
of the Jews, the Assyrians and Egj^ptians alternately 
tyrannized over them generation after generation : and 
in their past history the prediction has been reversed 
rather than realized. But it looked forward to the time 
when Israel shall be the inheritance of the Lord, and 
their land shall be the undisputed inheritance of Israel ; 
when, no longer trampled on, or held in servile bond- 

* Isaiah, xix.. 23-25. 

M % 



138 



THE BOUNDARIES OF 



age and slavish fear, those whom they served shall 
serve them, and they shall be a blessing to those who 
were a curse to them. That subject has not to be touch- 
ed on here, but merely as connected with the allotted 
territory to be held without controversy as their own. 
But it may be seen that, while widely distant bounds 
mark out the inheritance which the Lord has given 
them, their authority shall pass these borders, and that 
the inhabitants of the once mighty kingdoms which en- 
vironed their land and made it alternately their prey, 
shall honour them as a people greatly blessed of the 
Lord ; and Egypt and Assyria, united to it as to a cen- 
tral body, shall spread out on each side, in blessedness 
and beauty, as the wings of that land which was given 
by the covenant of the Lord to the seed of Abraham, of 
Isaac, and of Jacob. 

The reader, if hitherto accustomed to the dark and 
narrow antiquarian tract, may be startled at the sight of 
so extensive regions opening at once to his view, as 
pertaining to Israel, though stretching so far beyond 
the bounds of the land ever possessed under the law. 
But it is to be remembered that it is the lot of the Lord's 
inheritance, to which He has appointed such borders ; 
and that it is as such that Egypt and Assyria, as its trib- 
utary states, shall be blessed^ and Arabia be " the happy" 
(Arabia Felix), when its own people shall dwell within 
it, in presence of all their brethren, the children of Is- 
rael. 

In respect to their own land, according to the cov- 
enant with their fathers, it i« not to be forgotten that 
great, in the extent as well as duration of the blessings 
that can be realized under them, is the difference be- 
tween the law and the Gospel — between what even a 
chosen people ever could secure on the ground of their 
merit, or their own performance of the conditions of a 
legal covenant, and that which God freely gives to his 
believing, and, therefore, obedient children, who receive 
the blessings as all promise, according to the word of 
the Lord at the beginning, " To thee have I given this 
land and to thy seed forever, from the River of Egypt 
to the great Kiver Euphrates." 

Wherever there is any faith in God's promises or in 
his word, it cannot but be conceded that it is not a lit- 



THE PKOMISEI) LAND. 



139 



tie land which the Lord of the whole earth hath called 
large^ and that there is a difference, and a great one too, 
between the borders which bounded Palestine of old, 
and the whole land which, was the bequest of the Lord 
to the seed of Jacob. For when the borders of the 
former were set, where they ever after stood, the Lord 
himself said, There yet remaineth very much land to be pos- 
sessed. 

How very much difference there really was between 
Palestine, as occupied by the Israelites, and all the prom- 
ised LAND, as worthy of the name, and how the land is 
truly large, as the Lord hath spoken the word, the dif- 
ference of latitude and longitude between the borders 
on the various sides may enable the reader at once to 
determine. 

The latitude of Beersheba is 31° 15' ; of Dan, 33^ 15' ; 
the difference, two degrees. The south point of the 
Dead Sea, the ancient border of Israel, is 31° 7', in the 
same longitude with Dan, the intervening distance, in 
a line from north to south, being 128 geographical, or 
about 150 English miles. 

The latitude of the north point of the Elanitic Gulf 
of the Red Sea, on which Ezion-gaber, a port of Solo- 
mon's, stood, is 29° 31'. The mouth of the Orontes, or 
the entrance into Hamath from the Mediterranean, is 
36°, and that of Beer, or Berothah, on the Euphrates, 
37°. But the range of Amanus lies beyond it, and the 
medium longitude of the north boundary is more than 
36° 3r N., or, in an ideal line from south to north, the 
length of the land is upward of seven degrees, or five 
hundred miles, instead of a hundred and fifty, as of old. 

But " the breadth of Immanuel's land," instead of be- 
ing contracted to a span, is still more worthy of the 
name, and it stops not short of a navigable frontier ev- 
erywhere and on every side. The longitude of the Nile 
is 30° 2' ; that of the Euphrates, as it flows through the 
Persian Gulf, 48° 26', or a difference of nearly eighteen 
detrrees and a half, or more than eleven hundred miles. 
So large is the space comprehended, along the south- 
ern frontier, from the River of Egypt to the River Eu- 
phrates, from the east side to the west side, or in the 
same latitude. 

On the northern extremity of the land, the range of 



140 



THE BOUNDARIES OP 



Amanus, from the River Euphrates to the uttermost sea, 
or extremity of the Mediterranean, scarcely exceeds 
one hundred miles. In round numbers, the average 
breadth of the promised land would thus be six hundred 
miles, which, multiplied by its length, five hundred, 
gives an area of 300,000 square miles, or more than that 
of any kingdom or empire of Europe, Russia alone ex- 
cepted. The jesting Frenchman is brought down from 
his boasting when it is seen that a region half the ex- 
tent of France would need to be added to its size, be- 
fore the land of " the great nation" would equal, in su- 
perficial extent, that land which the Lord gave to the 
seed of Israel. It exceeds, in the aggregate amount of 
square miles, the territories of ten kingdoms of Europe, 
Prussia, Belgium, the Netherlands, Bavaria, Saxony, 
Hanover, Wirtemberg, Denmark, Sardinia, and Greece, 
and its relative proportion to Great Britain and Ireland 
is 300 to 118, or more than two and a half to one. 
Were the average breadth to be reckoned at 500, in- 
stead of the medium, 600 miles, which, from the in-e- 
quality of the sides, may be nearer the truth, the super- 
ficial extent of the promised land alone would still ex- 
ceed that of the largest kingdom of Europe. 

But Israel, extensive as are its bounds, is not des- 
tined to stand alone. Its mightiest adversaries of old 
shall be its servants. No prince but of Israel shall rule 
in Egypt or Assyria. The former country will add to 
Israel's dominion, or subservient domain, an area of 
150,000 square miles. The latter, including Mesopota- 
nsia, and " stretching beyond the Tigris as far as the 
mountains of Media,"* and from the mountains of Ar- 
menia to the Persian Gulf, leaves no region that shall 
not own immediate fealty to the kingdom of Israel, 
from the eastern shores of the Mediterranean to the 
borders of Persia and the vicinity of the Caspian. Such 
is the power of the word of the living God ; such the 
liberality of his gifts to the people whom He chose, 
were they his own by another covenant than that which 
they have broken ; and such, in topographical relations 
alone, is the provision that is made, as thus revealed, 
for the completion of the promise, that Israel shall final- 
ly be a blessing in the midst of the earth. Thus saith 

* Gibbon's Ilist.j vol, iv., p. 166. 



THE PR03IISED LAND. 



141 



the Lord, " It shall be to me a name of joy, a praise 
and an honour before all the nations of the earth, which 
shall hear all the good that I do unto them ; and they 
shall fear and tremble for all the goodness and for all 
the prosperity that I procure unto it."* 

There is a striking analogy between the word and the 
works of God, ever traceable by those who search the 
Scriptures and regard the operation of his hands. But 
the one and the other seem here strikingly to cohere. 
The Lord hath given the earth to the sons of men, as 
He hath set the bounds of their habitation. But He 
formed Israel for his glory, and chose them as his pe- 
culiar people ; and peculiar, too, is the land which He 
assigned them, even as respects its borders. The Med- 
iterranean, the Red Sea, and the Persian Gulf, form on 
the west, the south, and the east, borders of a land 
which, but for these inland seas, would be wholly en- 
circled by Asia, Africa, and Europe, and shut out from 
all direct communication with the Pacific and Atlantic, 
and the lesser oceans of the globe. The River of Egypt 
to the Mediterranean, and that sea from the month of 
the Nile to the estuary of the Orontes, and the Euphra- 
tes from the foot of Amanus to the Persian Gulf, leave 
not the smallest portion of the west side, or of the east 
side, that is not actually or virtually a navigable coast 
to the extent on both sides of two thousand miles; 
while on the north, the intermediate barrier of Amanus, 
at the breadth of less than one hundred, renders the 
land a garden enclosed. The hand of the Lord, who 
hath laid the foundations of the earth, and made the sea, 
and the dry land, is in all this; and here, though not 
here alone, He has magnified his word above all his 
name. The first glance at the borders of Israel, when 
they are looked at in the latitude assigned them by a 
divine and irrepealable decree, may show that they 
were set in subserviency to the final end, as declared, 
from the beginning, to be accomplished by the Lord, 
for which Israel was set apart from the nations, and 
not numbered among them, so that, as assuredly as 
their covenanted land shall be their everlasting possessio?i, 
all the families of the earth shall be blessed in the seed 
of Jacob. Seoarated as Israel is from other lands, such 



* Jer., xxxiii., 9. 



142 



ANCIENT POPULOUSNESS OF 



are its borders, that it has unequalled freedom of access 
to all. 

But, without here entering on such a theme, it be- 
hooves us first to consider how the land is goodly as well 
as large ; and how, notwithstanding all the curses that 
have come upon it, it is still fitted for becoming, as de- 
scribed in Scripture, a pleasant, delightsome, goodly, 
and glorious land, "the glory of all lands," the heritage 
of a people greatly blessed of the Lord. 



CHAPTER III. 

NATURAL FERTILITY AND ANCIENT POPULOUSNESS OF THE 

LAND OF ISRAEL. 

Ere ever the Israelites had entered on the possession 
of any portion of their inheritance, Moses declared unto 
them, The Lord thy God bringeth thee into a good land ; 
a land of brooks of water ^ of fountains^ and depths that 
spring out of valleys and hills ; a land of wheat^ and bar- 
ley^ and vineSy and fig-trees^ arid pomegranates ; a land of 
oil-olive and honey ; a land luherein thou shalt eat bread 
without scarceness^ thou shalt not lack any thing in it ; a 
land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou ?nay- 
est dig brass * The land whither ye go to possess it, is a 
land of hills and valleys, and drinketh water of the rain of 
heaven ; a land which the Lord thy God careth for : the 
eyes of the Lord thy God are always upon it, frorrr. the begin- 
ning of the year even mito the end of the year.\ And it is 
otherwise described as a land of corn and wine, a land of 
bread and vineyards, a land of oil-olive and of honey. X I 
chose Israel ; I lifted up mine hand unto them, to bring 
them forth of the land of Egypt into a land that I had espi- 
ed for them, flowing with milk and honey, which is the glo- 
ry of all lands. ^ 

When the Israelites first entered into their promised 
possession, before passing the Jordan, numerous were 
the cities and vast the spoil that fell at once into their 



* Deut., viii., 7-9. 
% 2 Kings, xviii., 32. 



t Ibid., xi., 11', 12. 
^ Ezek., XX., 6. 



THE PROMISED LAND. 



143 



hands, in the day when the Lord began to put the dread 
of them upon the nations that are under the whole heav- 
en, who should hear the report of them, and tremble 
and be in anguish because of them. When the iniquity 
of the Amorites was full, and all in Israel above twenty 
years old, who had come out of Egypt, and had tres- 
passed in the wilderness, had been buried there, it was 
given them to know that the Lord, though he would not 
clear the guilty, remembered his covenant with their 
fathers ; the promise that had seemed to linger was 
about to be fulfilled ; the word came from the Lord that 
they had compassed Mount Seir long enough, and they 
were commanded to turn northward and to begin to pos- 
sess, that they might inherit the land. They entered it 
not like a colony taking possession of an uncultivated, 
unpeopled, and defenceless region. But the Lord gave 
them a land for which they did not labour, and cities 
which they built not they dwelt in; of the vineyards 
and oliveyards which they planted not, did they eat.* 
Sihon, king of the Amorites, and all his people, came 
out ao'ainst them to fioht at Jahaz. But the Lord de- 
livered him unto them ; and they took all his cities, and 
dispeopled his kingdom of its former inhabitants, and 
took the cattle and all the spoil of the cities for a prey. 
Og, king of Bashan, came out against them, he and all 
his people, to battle at Edrei, and shared the fate of the 
other Amoritish king. They took all his cities at that 
time : there was not a city which they took not from 
them, threescore cities, all the region of Argob, the 
kingdom of Og in Bashan. All these cities were fen- 
ced with high walls, gates, and bars; besides unwalled 
towns a great many.f All the cities were taken at that 
time from the River of Arnon unto Mount Hermon, all 
the cities of the plain, and all Gilead, and all Bashan, 
unto Salach, and Edrei, cities of the kingdom of Og in 
Bashan. All the cattle, and all the spoil of the cities, 
they took for a prey to themselves. J 

The Midianites, too, fought against Israel; and the 
Lord was avenged of Midian. All the cities wherein 
they dwelt, and all their goodly castles, were burned 
with fire. But the first settlement of Israel was not 



* Deut., vi., 11. Josh., ixiv., 13. 

t Numb., xxi., 33-35. Deut., iii., 3-10. 



t Numb., xxi., 23-26. 



144 



ANCIENT POPULOUSNESS OF 



there ; and the sum of the prey was taken, and it was 
apportioned in Israel — six hundred and seventy-five 
thousand sheep, seventy-two thousand beeves, and six- 
ty-one thousand asses.* It was not by their sword or 
by their bow that the Israelites triumphed. One thou- 
sand men only were chosen out of each tribe to fight 
against the Midianites and to destroy them utterly. On 
enumerating, after their return, the sum of the men of 
war w^ho had gone forth to battle, there lacked not one 
man; whereupon the captains of thousands and captains 
of hundreds brought unto Moses an oblation to the 
Lord of wrought gold, taken of the spoil, sixteen thou- 
sand seven hundred and fifty shekels. f 

The numerous walled cities and towns of Bashan and 
Gilead manifestly imply the high fertility of these re- 
gions ; and the claim that was speedily urged for the 
possession of the conquered territory, shows that Is- 
rael had already entered, as their own, on a rich pastoral 
inheritance. The tribes of Reuben and Gad had a very 
great multitude of cattle, and they besought Moses and 
all the princes of the congregation to give them the land 
of Jazer and the land of Gilead, for the place was a 
place for cattle.:}: From Aroer, which is by the River 
Arnon, and the border unto the brook Jabbock, which 
is the border of the children of Ammon, the plain also, 
and Jordan and the coast thereof, and half Mount Gil- 
ead and the cities thereof, were given to the Reuben- 
ites and Gadites and all the region of Argob, and all 
Bashan, with its threescore cities, were given to the 
half tribe of Manasseh.§ The territories then possess- 
ed by the Moabites and Ammonites, together with the 
land of Edom, were at that time excluded from the 
patrimony of Israel. But, exclusive of these, the two 
tribes and a half had, as implied in Scripture, and as 
will afterward be more fully shown, a " goodly heritage." 
Like the tribes who possessed them, and like their kin- 
dred " outcasts of Israel," Gilead and Bashan have long 
been forgotten but in name. The time then was, when, 
beyond the Jordan, the faithful testimony was wrung 
from Balaam, " How goodly are thy tents, Jacob, and 
thy tabernacles, Israel j" but, scattered as the He- 

* Numb., xxx\., 32-34. t Ibid., xxxi., 10, 32-34, 48-52. 

t Ibid., xxxii., 1-4. (> Ibid., xxxii., 33, Josh., xiii., 9-31. 



THE PROMISED LAND. 



145 



brews are throughout the world, that testimony is pro- 
piietic still, which, on their return, Gilead and Bashan 
have yet to confirm. 

After the people had multiplied in the land, the sons 
of Eeuben spread their flocks from the entering- in of 
the wilderness from the River Euphrates, because their 
cattle were multiplied in the land of Gilead. Confed- 
erate with the Gadites and the Manassites, they made 
war with the Hagarites, and sent forth against them 
alone forty-four thousand valiant men, skilful in war. 
Not trusting alone to their skill or their strength, they 
cried to God in the battle, and prevailed. Fifty thou- 
sand camels, two hundred and fifty thousand sheep, and 
two thousand asses became the prey, while a hundred 
thousand men were the prisoners of the victors ; and, 
enlarging their border still farther within the promised 
bounds, they dwelt in their stead.* Neither a sterile 
land, nor stinted limits, though only partially possessed 
of old, were from the beginning thus assigned to the 
Israelitish occupants of the regions beyond Jordan, 
which have long been lost sight of, and for many ages 
have been all but blotted out from the memory of man. 
The time seems to be coming when these lands shall 
rise anew into an estimation befitting no mean portion 
of the inheritance of Israel, and becoming Christians to 
cherish, who believe the scriptural record concerning 
them of times long past, and look for their returning, 
because promised "glory" in that day — it may be not 
distant now — when the flock of the Lord's heritage, 
which he has long fed with the rod, shall feed in Bashan 
and in Gilead as in the days of old. And the Lord will 
show unto him marvellous things, according to his com- 
ing out of the land of Egypt, and the nations shall see, 
and be confounded at all their might. f 

From a mountain east of Bethel Abraham looked east- 
ward across the valley of Jordan, on the hills of Gilead 
and Bashan, while on every side around him lay the 
land of Canaan, within the boundaries of which he then 
stood. He and his sons, and his sons' sons, had wan- 
dered as strangers, very few in number, without a dwell- 
ing-place in the land. Jacob, well-stricken in years, 
had, together with his eleven sons, left that land in a 

* 1 Chron., v., 9, 18-22. t Micah, vii., 14, 15. 

N 



146 



ANCIENT P0PUL0U3NESS OF 



time of famine to go to Egypt, to dwell and to die there, 
but first to see again his other son Joseph, who at an 
early age had been taken as a slave-boy to the land of 
the Pharaohs, and sold to the keeper of a prison. But 
when the four hundred years, spoken of by the Lord 
Almighty to Abraham, had expired, and Israel had be- 
come a great people according to His word, and was 
brought back again to the land often promised to their 
race, the descendants of houseless but believing patri- 
archs experienced the truth of the covenant of their 
God. In such large measure was their inheritance dealt 
out to them, that when Joseph, who had been a slave 
and a prisoner in Egypt, had become in his descend- 
ants two tribes in Israel, and when he had received, ac- 
cording to his father's word, one portion above his 
brethren, one half of one of these had for possession the 
land of Bashan, with its fruitful hills, its rich plains, and 
its sixty cities ] and two tribes besides received also 
their proportionate inheritance at their own entreaty, 
on the east of the Jordan ; and when that river was 
passed, the land on the west of that river, with all its 
cities, was divided by lot among other tribes of Israel. 

The western side of the Jordan is aland better known. 
Trodden as it peculiarly was by patriarchs, and proph- 
ets, and apostles, and, infinitely more than all, by Jesus, 
its claims on every believer's remembrance are such as 
cannot be questioned j and the testimony of historic 
and prophetic truth concerning it has an unchallenge- 
able claim to an unrivalled interest, or such as no other 
land can urge, on the part of either Christian or Jew. 

The sum of all the congregation was taken in the plains 
of Moab, by command of the Lord, before they struck 
their tents to take possession of their inheritance. The 
land was to be divided among them according to the 
number of the names. To many the more inheritance 
was to be given, and to few the less. Exclusive of the 
tribe of Levi, there were numbered of the children of 
Israel above six hundred thousand,* from twenty years 
old and upward, all that were able to go to war in Is- 
rael. As none of them exceeded sixty years of age, 
they could not have formed more at the utmost than a 
third part of the total number, which could not have 

* Num., xxvi., 51. 



THE PROMISED LAND. 



fallen short of two millions, and is generally estimated 
at three. The tribes of Reuben and of Gad, and the 
half tribe of Manasseh, were not numerically a fifth part 
of Israel, according to the census that was taken of them 
all ; and more than a million and a half must have pass- 
ed the Jordan, to take their inheritance at once in the 
land of Canaan. 

Neither a sterile region, however large, nor a w^aste, 
unreclaimed country, however fertile naturally, could, on 
its immediate occupancy, have given ample space and 
abundant sustenance to so vast a number of simulta- 
neous settlers. Unlike what it yet shall be on the des- 
tined return of the Hebrew race, the land, on their first 
entrance, w^h not too narrow by reason of the multitude 
of men ] but, numerous as were the thousands of Israel, 
the land was then too large for the people. The nations 
who possessed it were to be put out by little and little,^ 
and the Israelites were commanded not to consume them 
at once, lest the beasts of the field should increase upon 
them.f Four hundred years elapsed from their first set- 
tlement east of the Jordan till the Hagarites were 
smitten and dispossessed, and the flocks of the Reuben- 
ites reached to the wilderness of the Euphrates. When 
the Jordan w^as first passed, and the tribes of Israel en- 
camped on the plains of Jericho, they did eat of the old 
corn of the land ; and the manna ceased, as needed no 
more, whenever they had entered into Canaan. That 
land was their own by the covenant of their God — the 
God of heaven and of earth. Their enemies, who were 
many and mighty, speedily fell before them. The Ca- 
naanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Jebusites, and Hivites com- 
bined against them. Their kings went out, and all their 
hosts with them ; much people, even as the sand that is 
upon the seashore in multitude, with horses and chariots 
very many, and pitched together at the waters of Merom 
to fio-ht against Israel. t Their warfare was in vain, 
for these were days in which the Lord of Hosts was 
known to be the God of Jacob. The allied kings of Ca- 
naan, who reigned from Mount Seir to the vallej^ of 
Lebanon, were slain and utterly destroyed, and all the 
spoil of their cities and cattle were the prey of the peo- 
ple into whose hands the Lord had given them. In the 

* Deut., vii., 22. t Ibid. t Josh., xi., 5-7. 



148 



ANCIENT POPtJLOUSNESS OI* 



hills, and the valleys, and the plains, allotted to the in-^ 
heritance of Judah, a hundred and four cities, with their 
villages, are enumerated;* but, though the most numer- 
ous of the tribes, the part of the children of Judah was 
too much for them, and the tribe of Simeon had their 
inheritance within that of Judah. A greater number of 
other cities or towns, mentioned by name, were al- 
lotted among the other tribes. Forty-eight cities, with 
their suburbs, were separated from among the rest for 
the Levites,! the least of all the tribes ; and these seem 
not to have been a tenth part of the cities which were 
divided among the commonwealth of Israel. 

The land was subdued, and there stood not a man of 
their enemies before them. But, vast as was the multi- 
tude, so ample were their possessions, that when Joshua 
was old and stricken in years, there remained much land 
to be possessed, so that there were seven tribes which 
had not then received their inheritance. Having assem- 
bled the whole congregation of Israel at Shiloh, he 
charged them with being slack to go in to possess the 
land which the Lord God of their fathers had given 
them ; and according to the commandment of the Lord, 
he divided that which remained, from which their ene- 
mies had not been driven cut, as if it had already been 
their own in possession. But he warned them not to 
come unto these nations, or to cleave unto the remnant 
of them, nor to make mention of the name of their gods, 
else they might know for a certainty that the Lord 
would not any more drive out these nations before them. 

The Israelites, in the second generation after Joshua, 
transgressed the covenant which was their tenure of the 
land, and therefore the word came from the Lord that 
He would not any more drive out from among them the 
nations which Joshua left when he died. In estimating 
the population, in ancient times, of the promised land, 
they to whom alone it would have been given if they had 
been faithful to their God are not alone to be reckoned. 
The Philistines, and all the Canaanites, and other na- 
tions, were left to prove Israel by them ; and the Israel- 
ites dwelt among the Canaanites, H!ittites, and Amo- 
rites, and Perizzites, and Hivites, and Jebusites. Be- 
sides these, the Ammonites, Moabites, and Edomites 

* Josh,, XV., 20-63, t Ibid., xxi., 41. 



THE PROMISED LAND. 



149 



were neither few nor feeble. Their enemies that re- 
mained within their own covenanted borders were so 
numerous and strong, that, sometimes even singly, and 
often partially combined, they brought Israel very low, 
in the land promised to their fathers ; and the first wars 
in Canaan were unlike to many which, when faithless to 
their God, they subsequently waged, and the Philistines, 
Edomites, Ammonites, and Canaanites successively op- 
pressed the children of Israel. 

"From Dan to Beersheba" was a marked and even 
proverbial expression, which denoted "all Israel," from 
one extremity to the other of the land which they held, 
though not exclusively, in actual possession. But many 
regions, now rich in ruins, and once covered with cities, 
lay within the bounds of Israel's promised inheritance, 
which were left in the possession of other nations than 
the seed of Jacob, who, together with the aliens who 
dwelt in the midst of them, were, it may be presumed, 
never less numerous than the Israelites. 

Though the word had gone forth from the Lord that 
he would no more drive out from before them any 
of these nations, because they had transgressed His 
covenant which He had commanded their fathers, and 
though they were often oppressed by their enemies, and 
the Lord "vexed them with all adversity" when they 
rebelled against Him, yet the children of Israel multi- 
plied in the land, and became, more than before, a great 
nation. When David numbered the people, including 
the soldiery, or those who were called into the actual 
service of the king in their due course, month by month 
throughout the year, "all they of Israel were eleven 
hundred thousand that drew sword ; and of Judah, 
four hundred and seventy thousand,"* exclusive of Levi 
and Benjamin. The whole congregation of Israel must 
rather have exceeded than come short of six millions of 
souls. At a later period of their history, after the long, 
peaceful reign of Solomon, their progressive population 
is sadly marked by the hostile armies of Judah and Is- 
rael, headed by their kings Abijah and Jeroboam, and 
numbering respectively 400,000 and 800,000 chosen 
men.f The fertility of a country may be told by the 
abundant population it sustains, if these be, as the Israel" 

* 1 Chron., xxi., 5. t 2 Chron., xiii., 3. 

N 2 



150 



ANCIENT POPULOUSNESS OP 



ites were, an agricultural rather than a commercial peo- 
ple. When such armies were mustered, conclusive ev- 
idence is given of the vast population they represent, 
and, consequently, of the fertility of the land from which 
its subsistence was derived, though every man capable 
of bearino- arms had been ranked in their number, with- 
out the designation of their being "chosen men." But 
when such armies of Israelites were set in battle array 
to defile with each other's blood that land which the 
Lord had given them for an inheritance, no argument 
can be drawn from thence that such would have been 
the full extent of Israel's greatness, if they had kept the 
covenant of the Lord their God, and had not thus de- 
filed, as finally for many ages they forfeited the goodly 
heritage which the Lord had given them. 

But without entering more than is needful here on 
their history as a nation, while yet they had a land that 
they could call their own, a single glance at the last sad 
scene may suffice to show, from the teeming population 
which inherited the last remnant of that land, before they 
were finally an expatriated race, without a country or a 
home, that Palestine sustained a vast population. Prior 
to the destruction of Jerusalem, the Idumeans had en- 
croached far within the lot of Judah's inheritance, and 
Eleutheropolis, then their capital, was situated on the 
plain of Judea, within fifty miles of Jerusalem. Sama- 
ria was peopled by an alien race, but Galilee was throng- 
ed with Jews, together with Perea, which, reaching to 
Ammon on the opposite side of the Jordan, formed, in 
addition to the remaining portion of their own proper 
country of Judea, the whole territory then possessed by 
the Jews. Though restricted to this comparatively 
small portion of Israel's inheritance, Judea, as then peo- 
pled by the Jews, must, in the time of Titus, have con- 
tained, as Volney admits, four millions of inhabitants. 
After having been subject to the Roman sway, the Jews 
cast off their authority, and resisted for more than three 
years the mighty masters of the world, to whom the 
siege of Jerusalem Avas one of the hardest enterprises 
they had ever undertaken. 

The brief description given by Josephus of Judea in 
the commencement of the war is full of interest, cor- 
roborated as it is by other testimony. 



THE PROMISED LAND. 



151 



" The two Galilees (Upper and Lower) of so great 
extent, and encompassed with so many nations of for- 
eigners, have been always able to make a strong resist- 
ance on all occasions of war. For the Galileans are 
inured to war from their infancy, and have been always 
very numerous ; nor has the country been ever destitute 
of men of courage, or wanted a numerous population ; 
for their soil is universally rich and fruitful, and full of 
plantations of trees of all sorts, insomuch that by its 
fruitfulness it invites the most slothful to take pains in 
its cultivation. Accordingly, it is all cultivated by its 
inhabitants, and no part of it lies waste. Moreover, the 
cities lie here very thick, and the very many villages 
there are here are everywhere so full of people, from 
the richness of their soil, that the very least of them 
contained above 15,000 inhabitants. It is all capable of 
cultivation, and is everywhere fruitful. 

"Perea, though partly desert, and esteemed less fer- 
tile than Galilee, yet has a moist soil, and produces all 
kinds of fruits, and its plains are planted with all sorts 
of trees, while yet the olive-tree, the vine, and the palm 
are chiefly cultivated there. It is also sufficiently wa- 
tered with torrents, which issue out of the mountains, 
and with springs, that never fail to flow, even when the 
torrents fail them, as they do in the heat of summer." 

Samaria is described by Josephus as of the same na- 
ture with Judea, " for both countries are made up of 
hills and valleys, and are moist enough for agriculture, 
and are very fruitful. They have abundance of trees, 
and are full of autumnal fruit, both that which grows 
wild, and that which is the effect of cultivation. They 
are not naturally watered by many rivers, but derive 
their chief moisture from rain water, of which they have 
no want ; and for the rivers which they have, all their 
waters are exceedingly sweet ; and, what is the greatest 
sign of excellence and abundance, they each of them 
are very full of people."* 

Such was the remnant of the goodly heritage of Ja- 
cob immediately before it was wrested from the last 
tribe that possessed it, and such was the land of the 
Jews ere they ceased to be a united nation, with a coun- 
try that they could call their own. They had ceased 

* Joseph., Hist., b. iii., c. 3, 



152 



ANCIENT P0PUL0USNES3 OF 



to be blessed, as their fathers had been. Israel ere 
then had been shorn of its glory, and had gone into 
captivity. Judah had become tributary, and the scep- 
tre had departed from it. Jerusalem, once the metrop- 
olis of Syria, with a recognised supremacy from the 
Kiver of Egypt to the Euphrates, had shrunk into the 
denuded capital of a rebellious province, which, in the 
attempt to regain its liberty, brought on itself swift and 
complete destruction. Yet, on a retrospect of the past, 
in order to know that Israel's was a goodly heritage, it 
is only needful to look to what Judea continued to be, 
while it was full of iniquity, as the Jewish historian re- 
lates, and ripe for judgment, as the event bore witness, 
till those to whom it was given by the covenant of their 
God were rooted out of it, according to his word, with 
anger and wrath, and great indignation. Its state then 
could not rightly be taken as any illustration of the ful- 
ness of the promise, or the richness of the inheritance 
pertaining to a people faithful to the covenant of their 
God, nor can it be reckoned as the full measure of the 
bounty and the blessing which awaits Israel in the lat- 
ter days, when God shall establish with them an ever- 
lasting covenant of peace. But from what Judea was 
even then, a testimonial may be taken of what Israel 
yet may be. 

That the plain of Judah, as well as that of Galilee, 
was then covered with an abundant population, is ob- 
vious from the express statement of Strabo, as illustra- 
ted by the fact that, from the village of Jamnia and 
from the inhabitants around it, forty thousand armed 
men could be sent forth into the field.* 

Hecate us, who flourished about three hundred years 
before Josephus (when the Jews, though a tributary 
people, had greatly recovered from the Babylonish cap- 
tivity), described the country of Judea as containing 
3,000,000 of Egyptian acres (about 2,250,000 English 
acres), generally of a most excellent and most fruitful 
soil ; as containing many strong places and villages, the 
chief city, Jerusalem, being inhabited by one hundred 
and twenty thousand men. According to Tacitus, who, 
like Josephus, wrote a history of the Jewish war, great 

" Kat 'ivav^pr^ucv bvTOs o tottos ws' Ik rrj^ tr'Xrja'iov Kwixijs lapwhag, Kai TU)V KaTOlKlSiv 
T<{) KU/cAcj) rirrapas pvptddas bn\'i^e(ydai.—SU-A\}0, torn, ii,, 1079. 



THE PROMISED LAND. 



153 



part of Judea was overspread with villages, besides 
towns, the chief of which was a strongly-fortified city. 
By the lowest estimation given by him, the number of 
Jews that perished in the siege and destruction of Jeru- 
salem was 600,000, which, according to Josephus, form- 
ed the number of dead bodies that were carried out at 
a single gate. Of no siege, in all history, is there so 
circumstantial a detail, even as it was one of unequalled 
misery and slaughter. As the vast population of Israel 
in former ages could best be told from the hundreds of 
thousands in the armies mustered against each other, 
when Ephraim fought with Judah, so, when the latter 
alone was left, and the time had come when it too was 
to be rooted out, the thousands of Judah were counted 
by the myriads of the slain. In Jerusalem, and other 
cities and towns, as specially enumerated by Josephus, 
above thirteen hundred thousand perished. The multi- 
tude of sacrifices could not save them. The number 
of these, at the last passover, was 256,500, indicating 
an assemblag-e within and around Jerusalem of two 
millions and a half, which could not have exceeded a 
moiety of the gross Jewish population before it was 
thinned by the sword, and pestilence, and famine. 

Again and again the Lord rooted them out of their land 
in anger ^ and in wrath^ and in great indignation^ and final- 
ly scattered them among all nations under heaven. In the 
curses of the covenant it was written that the Lord 
would bring a nation against them from far ^ from the end 
of the earth ; that they would be besieged in all their gates 
throughout all their land, and that their cities would be 
laid waste* And after the destruction of the city and 
the sanctuary by the Romans, and the expulsion of the 
Jews from Judea, they soon rallied again around the 
cities of their fathers, and strove to throw off the Ro- 
man yoke. All Judea, as a heathen historian relates, 
was in a state of commotion ; and, aided as the Jews 
were by others, to assert their liberty, the whole em- 
pire was convulsed. The Emperor Adrian sent all his 
best commanders against the Jews, the chief of whom 
was Julius Severus, who commanded in Britain, and 
went from the end of the then known world to Pales- 
tine. Awed by their numbers and despair, he dared 

* Deut., xxviii., 49, 51, 52. 



154 



ANCIENT POPULOUSNESS OF 



not to meet them in the open field, but attacked them 
separately with a great body of soldiers and tribunes, 
cut off their provisions, and adopting the slow mode of 
successive sieges, or shutting them up in detached bodies 
within their towns and villages, or besieging them in all 
their gates, the Roman armies so oppressed and broke 
them down when shut up, that very few escaped j and five 
hundred of their strongly-fortified citadels, and nine hun- 
dred and eighty-five of their most celebrated and noble 
villaoes, were overthrown to their foundations. In sal- 
lies and battles five hundred and eighty thousand were 
slain; by famine, disease, and by fire, an "infinite mul- 
titi]de" perished, so that almost all Judea was emptied 
of its inhabitants, and left like a desert.* Such, too, 
was the slaughter of the Romans, so fiercely did the 
Jews contend for their fatherland ere they could be 
rooted out of it.^ that Adrian, in addressing the Senate, 
omitted in his despatch the usual exordium: "If you 
and your children are in health, it is well ; I and the 
army are well." But the Romans unconsciously exe- 
cuted their commission, and completed the work of de- 
struction. 

i In the very completion of the predicted judgments, 
while the curses of a covenant which they had broken 
pursued them from the land promised to their fathers, 
or cut them off' within it, it may be seen how goodly 
was the heritage they lost, and how many were the 
fortresses and noble villages of Judea, after the chief 
cities had fallen, and Jerusalem had been laid even vi^ith 
the ground. It passed into the hands of other posses- 
sors : and the land of Israel, thus brought low, when it 
ceased to be tenanted by any of the tribes or of the 
race of Israel, had yet to bear, in after ages, the heavy 
curses of a broken covenant, till, on the completion of 
them, the time should come when Israel should be in 
blindness and the land in bondage no more. 

* Had ri anus optimos quosque duces adversum eos mittit, quorum primus fuit 
Julius Severus, qui ex Britannia, cui prserat, contra Judceos missus est. Hie nul- 
la ex parte ausus est aperte cum hostibus congredi, multitudine, ipsorum, atque 
despevatione cognita ; sed eos separatim magtio militum ac tribu'norum numero ador- 
tus, commeatu prohibuit, atque iriterclusos serius quidcm, sed minore cum periculo, 
ita oppressit fugitque, ut pauci admodum evaserint, et qumquaginta eorum arces 
muaitissimoG vicjque celeberrimi atque uobilissimi nongenti octoginta quinque fundi- 
tus eversi sint. Osesa sunt in execursionibus prsliistiue hominum quingeiita octo- 
ginta millia , eorum autem qui fame, morbo, et igni interierant, infinita fuit multi- 
tudo ita ut omnes poene Judaea deserta relicta fuerit, — Dion Cass., Hist. Rom, lih> 

p. m, 



THE PROMISED LAND. 



155 



So abundant was the population, and so fertile the 
land of Judea, till the time had conne when the iniquity 
of the Jews was full; when the threatened judgments 
could no longer tarry, and the people to whom it had 
been given were cast forth out of the land, and scatter- 
ed as homeless wanderers throughout a persecuting 
world. But, though the Jews have lost their pleasant 
land, still the land of their desire ; and though God has 
seemed to forsake his inheritance, yet far more exten- 
sive regions than they ever possessed, or any of the 
other tribes of Israel ever fully inherited, have as strong 
claims as Judea itself for ranking as portions of the 
goodly heritage of Jacob, as they manifestly lie within 
its divinely-appointed borders. 

In Ptolemy's geography, forty-three cities or towns* 
are enumerated in Palestine or Judea, includinof Gal- 
ilee, Samaria, and Philistia, while more than a hundred 
and ninety! besides these have their localities within. 

* Cfflsarea Stratonis, Apollonia, Joppc, Jaranetorum portus, Azotus, Gazaeoruiu 
portus, Ascalon, Anthedoii. 

Galil/ea., Camphuris (Sapphura), Capernaum, Julias, Tiberias. 
Samaria, Neapolis, Thena. 

JuD<EA (on the west of the Jordan), Rhaphia, Gaza, Jamnia, Lydda, Antipatris, 
Drusias, Sebaste, Bstogabra, Esbus, Einmaus, Guphna, Archeiais, Phasaelis, Jer- 
icus, nierosolyma (Jerusalem, then called CElia Capitolina), Thamna, Engada, 
Beddoro, Thamaro. 

JuDiCA (on the east of the Jordan), Cosmos, Libias, Callirrhoe, Gazaros, Epicoeros. 

Idum/ea (on the west of the Jordan), Mezarmie (Berzamma, Bersabee), Caparorsa, 
Gemmaruris, Elusa, Maps. 

t Seleucia Pieria, Orontis Ha. ostia (Tiphon), Pontes fluvii (Ophites), Posidium, 
Heraclea, Laodicia, Gabala (Gebal), Paltus (Platos), Balanse. 

Phoenicia, Simyra, Orthosia, Tripolis, Dieu prosopou, vcl Dei Fades, Botrys, 
Byblus, Berytus. Sinon, Tyrus, Ecdijipa, Ptolemais, Sycaminos, Dora, Area, Paluea- 
biblus, vcl vetus biblus, Gabala, Caesarea, Panias. 

CoMAQENE (Azar), Areca, Antiochia penes Taurum, Sing-a, Germanicia, Cata- 
mana, Doliche (Dolica), Deba, Cliaoiiia, Chobmadara, Samosata. 

Cyrrtstica, Ariseria, Reg-ias, Rnba, Ileracleum, Niara, Ilicrapolis, Cyrrus, 
Beroea, Thena, Paphara, Vrema, Arudis, Zcuguma, Europus, Cecilia, Bethammaria, 
Gerrhe, Arimara, Eragiza. 

Seleucidis, Gephyra, Gindarus, Imma. 

Cassiolidis, Antiochia, Daphne, Bactaialla, Audea (L)-dia), Seleucus penes Be- 
Inm, Larissa, Epiphania, Raplianete, Antaiadus, Marathus, Mariamne, Mamuga. 

Chalybonitidis, Thenia, Acoraca (Acoraba), Derrhima, Chalybon, Spelunca 
(Spelucca), Barbarissus, Athis. 

ChaLCIDICES, Chalcis, Asaphidama, Tolmidessa, Maronias, Coara. 

Apamene, Nazama (Nazaba), Thelniinissus, Apamia, Eraissa (Hernesa). 

Laodicene, Cabiosa Laodicia, Paradisus, Jabruda. 

CuRVA Syria, Ccele-Syria, or Decapolis, Ileliopohs, Abila cognomine Lysa- 
nii, Gaana (Gasana), Ina, Damascus, Samuhs, Abida, Hippus, Capitolias, Idara, 
Adra, Scythopolis, Gerasa, Pella, Dium, Gadora, Philadelphia, Canatha. 

Palmyrenes, Rhesapha, ChoUe, Oriza, Putea, Adana, Palmyra, Adacha, Dana- 
ba, Goaria, Auera, Casama, Odmana, Aleia, Alalis, Sura, Alamata. 

Batan^ga, Gerrha, Elere, Nelaxa, Adrama. 

Arabia Petr.ea, Eboda, Malialtha, Calguia, Lysa, Guba, Gypsaria, Gerasa, 
Petra, Characoma (Characomba), Auara, Zanaatha, Adrou, Zoara, Thoana, Necla, 
Cletharro, Moca, Sebunta (Esebon), Ziza, Maguza, Medaua, Audia. Rhabmathmoma, 
^itha, Surratha, Bostra (Bosrah), Mesada, Adra, Corace, 



156 



ANCIENT POPULOUSNESS OF 



the geographical limits of the promised land. Of these, 
seventeen cities were situated in the land of Phcenicia, 
alono- the coast, between the mouth of the river which 
flows between Tyre and Sidon, opposite to Dan, to the 
mouth of the Orontes. On the banks of that river stood 
twelve noble cities or towns, among which, Seleucia, 
Antioch, Apamea, Epiphania, Emesa, and Heliopolis 
(Baalbec) were numbered, the last of which, though in 
modern times greatly renowned among ruins, had an- 
ciently but a subordinate place among the cities of 
Syria. Other cities were situated between the Oron- 
tes and the Mediterranean j while the Syrian provinces 
north of Damascus, as then distinguished, Seleucia, Cyr- 
ristica, Cassiotis, Calchis, Chalybon, Apamea, and Lao- 
dicea ad Libanum, numbered collectively upward of 
fifty towns or cities. Besides the ten cities, whose 
number gave that region its name, other eight are add- 
ed by Ptolemy to the cities of the Decapolis. Sj^ria, 
as Volney justly remarks, contained a hundred flourish- 
ing cities, and abounded with towns, and villages, and 
hamlets. 

Syria, according to heathen testimony, was thus over- 
spread with cities at the commencement of the Chris- 
tian era. It was the garden, and, together with Egypt, 
the granary of Rome — the imperial city which reigned 
over the greatest empire that ever existed in the world. 
The fierce and protracted warfare of the Jews with the 
Romans, and their desperate and all but despairing at- 
tempt to repossess their inheritance, brought renewed 
and redoubled desolation on Judea, and levelled its 
cities with the ground. But in after ages it greatly 
recovered from the destructive overthrow. Christian- 
ity flourished for a season in the country which gave it 
birth. Though Jerusalem had fallen, the city where 
men were first called Christians had for a long time a 
high place among the chief cities of the world, and un- 

ArabiaDeseeta, Thapsacus, Bithra (Bithra), Gadirtha, Auzara, Audatfha, Edda- 
ta (Dadara), Balatsea (Balagsea), Pharg'a, Colorina (Calarina), BelgncBa ( Belygiitea), 
Ammsea, Adi^ra (Idicara), Jocara (Jucaia), Barathema (Barathena), Saue, Ccche 
(Choce), Gauara, Aurana (Auran), Beganna CRheganna), A]ata, Erupa, Therrma, 
Luma, Thauba, Seuia, Dapha, Sora, Odogana, Teduim, Zagmais, Arrhade, Abtera 
(Obsera), Artemita, Nachaba (Banacha), Dumietha, AUata, Abere, Calahhusa, Salma. 

The celebrated Itinerary of Antoninus Augustus, a most precious relic of antiqui- 
ty, worthy of a Roman emperor to bequeath to the world, marks the relative distance 
of the chief of these, cities. And the portion of it that refers to them is inserted in 
the Appendix. 



THE PROMISED LAND. 



157 



questionably ranked next to Rome and Alexandria as 
the third, if not the second city of the empire. Though 
the people of the land had perished from off it, and 
were scattered abroad^ and imperial decrees followed 
hard on each other, prohibiting the Jews from entering 
the land of their fathers, or daring even to draw near to 
look upon the place where Jerusalem had stood, a once 
alienated people, who embraced the everlasting cove- 
nant and received the Spirit of adoption, arose within 
it, and for a season prospered there, as if Israel's in- 
heritance had been given to the Gentiles. The progress 
of desolation was stayed, and time was given as if to 
try whether the better covenant, established upon bet- 
ter promises, would be kept by those who, in the faith 
of Jesus, professed to be the children, though not ac- 
cording to the flesh, of faithful Abraham. But as the 
great apostacy began to work in the days of the apos- 
tles, so the simplicity of the faith as it is in Jesus soon 
forsook the scene of its origin j and, leaving the plains 
of Syria and other fertile regions, took refuge in an 
Alpine wilderness^ in the place which the Lord had pre- 
pared* for his faithful witnesses, while idolatry resumed 
its domination in the East and in the West. 

The forbearance and long-suffering patience of God 
are manifested by the suspension of unrepealed judg- 
ments, even when the sinfulness of man might call them 
justly down. The proof is too abundant that, in the 
land where its Author was crucified, the everlasting 
covenant was broken by those w^lio bore the Christian 
name. 

The prophetic cause assigned for the ultimate deso- 
lation of the land, while its own inhabitants shall be 
scattered abroad, till nothing but a tithe of what it was 
should remain, is thus declared in the Word that never 
errs, and that speaks of things then future as if they 
had been past: "Because the inhabitants thereof have 
transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, and 
broken the everlasting covenant, therefore hath the 
curse devoured the land, and they that dwell therein are 
desolate."! It is needful to bear this testimony of the 
Spirit of prophecy in remembrance while surveying 
that land where Christian churches were established 



* Rev., xii., 6. 



t Isa., xiiv., 5, 6. 

o 



158 



ANCIENT POPULOUSNESS OF 



after Jerusalem and its temple had been laid even with 
the ground. A far greater and longer desolation has 
come over the land of Israel than that which was brought 
on it by the Romans, and Christian churches, almost 
without number, have been laid as low as were the 
Temple of Jerusalem and the synagogues of Israel. In 
a retrospect of the past, there are manifold proofs that 
Palestine and the surrounding regions vied in fertility, 
population, and wealth with any land during the earlier 
ages of the lower empire. Judea, indeed, had fallen, 
after one of the bloodiest v/ars that ever stained the 
page of history, or reddened any land 5 but beyond Ju- 
dea there was little else than quiet submission to the 
Roman yoke. That iron power kept the world in awe, 
and comparative peace, to what it long had known, 
reigned over Syria. As a Roman province, it was re- 
nowned in the world, and witness was given again how 
vast a population it could sustain. Long after their 
domination began, not only were ancient cities restored, 
but new cities arose ; to the massive structures of an- 
cient ages they added the beauties of Grecian art ; and 
though the withering blight of Heaven's wrath had 
fallen on the mountains and plains of Judea, Syria, un- 
der the Romans, recovered for a time from many 
desolating contests, gave some renewed token of what 
it may be in the hands of its rightful possessors, 
when Israel shall be redeemed — when peace shall uni- 
versally prevail, and when there shall be desolations no 
more. 

In a description of the provinces of the East, as they 
existed in the middle of the fourth century, when the 
empire was called Christian — as if Jerusalem, not Rome, 
had been the capital of the world — Ammianus Marcel- 
linus, an eminent Roman historian, portrays, in a few 
words, the different divisions of Syria, and gives a brief 
notice of its cities as they existed then. 

Syria {Coele-Syria)^ spreading over a spacious plain, 
is ennobled by Antioch, a city known throughout the 
world, which in the number of its exports and imports 
is unequalled by any other, and also by the very flour- 
ishing cities of Laodicea, Apamea, and Seleucia. Phosni- 
cia^ lying along the acclivities of Lebanon, is full of the 
bounties and loveliness of nature, and is adorned with 



t 



THE PROMISED LAND. 159 

many beautiful cities, among which, though Tyre, Si- 
don, and Berytus excel for their pleasantness and the 
celebrity of their names, they yet have their equals in 
Emesa and Damascus. Palestine, abounding in culti- 
vated and flourishing regions, has several great cities 
which rival each other in their excellence, viz., Csesarea, 
Eleutheropolis, Neapolis, Askelon, and Gaza. The re- 
gion beyond the Jordan, denominated Arabia, is rich in 
the variety of the merchandise of which it is full ; it has, 
besides other large towns, the cities of Bostra, Gerasa, 
and Philadelphia, which the solidity of their walls ren- 
ders most secure.* 

The Roman colony of subjugated Palestine was divi- 
ded into three provinces, each of which appropriated 
alike that noblest of territorial names. Of these the 
first, Palesdna Prima^ included the land of Philistia, the 
greater part of Judea, and Samaria. The second em- 
braced within its bounds Galilee on the one side of the 
Lake of Tiberias, and the region of Gaulonitis, or Gada- 
ra, on the other, but w^as hemmed in by Phoenicia, on 
the Mediterranean coast. The third^ Pahstina Tertia^ 
vel Salutaris, included the southern part of Judea, 
together with Edom and Moab. The far greater part 
of the trans-Jordanic region, though strictly pertaining 
to Syria, bore, from " Eoman vanity," the name of Ara- 
bia. From Dan to Beersheba, the whole of the three 
Palestines, as of Israel's ancient inheritance, was meas- 
ured in their utmost limits from north to south. These, 
therefore, unitedly formed but a small portion of the 
land that was at first promised to their fathers, and 
shall at last be divided among the Israelitish tribes. 
Yet, trodden down by the Gentiles as Palestine was, 
and meted out for the possession of Israel's enemies, 
and yielding up its rem.ains to an Italian republic, the 
cities of Palestine, having risen more than once from 
their ruins, Vv'ere yet to be reckoned by a number far 
larger than some independent kingdoms can boast. 

Different lists of the episcopal cities of the three Pal- 
estines are given in Eeland's most valuable work. In 
the first of these, w^iich he deemed incomplete, the 
number of those places, of which each was a bishop's 
see, exceeded seventy. Pahstina Prima^ containing 

* AJttmianus Marcellinus, lib. xiv., cap, viii. 



I 



160 ANCIENT POrULOUSNESS OF 

thirty-five bishoprics;* Palestina Secunda, twenty-one ;f 
and Palestina Tertia^ eighteen ]% seventy-four in all. To 
these are to be added, as given by Reland in another 
list, sixteen bishop's sees in the Phoenician provinces of 
Arabia, twelve in the province of Lebanon, and thirty- 
four in that of Arabia, or the Haouran, of which Bostra 
was the capital. 

But Palestine, in its widest extent, when divided into 
three Roman provinces, w-as far from comprehending 
the destined heritage of Jacob; and a much more com- 
plete list of the bishop's sees in Syria is affixed by the 
Archbishop of Tyre to his history of the Crusades. 

As Antioch, in former ages, had been the seat of em- 
perors and kings, whether the successors of Pharaoh, 
or Nebuchadnezzar, or of Alexander, or bearing the 
name of Caesars; so, when a proud hierarchy, supplant- 
ing in its native region the simplicity of the faith of the 
meek and lowly Jesus, outrivalled earthly principalities, 
the same city, long accustomed to rule, became the 
apostolic see of Syria, and held in subjection to its au- 
thority, as their titles ran, many catholici, metropoli- 
tans, archbishops, and bishops. In vain, according to 
an ecclesiastical polity like theirs, did Jesus say to his 
apostles themselves, "Ye know that they which are ac- 
counted to rule over the Gentiles exercise lordship over 
them, and their great ones exercise authority upon 
them ; hut so shall it not be among you ; but whosoever 
will be great among you, shall be your minister ; and 
whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant 
of all."§ In vain did Jesus, when his disciples disputed 
which of them should be greatest, take a little child and 
place him in the midst of them, as a pattern worthy of 
the imitation of apostles, declaring that no man could 
enter in another manner into the kingdom of heaven ;|| 
and in vain did he say, "Be not ye called rabbi ; for 

* JEl]?i or Jerusalem, Anthedon, Antipatris, Apathus, Aracla or Heraclea, Arche- 
lais, Ascalon, Azotiis, Bitelion, Baschat, Ctesarea, Diocletianopolis, Diosopolis, Dora, 
Eleutheropolis, Gadara, Gaza, Gerara, Jericho, Jamnia, Joppe, Livias, Lydda, Ma- 
g-isnia, Minois, Neapolis, Nicopolis, Orus, Petra (Palestina), Raphia, Sebaste, Sozu- 
sa, Sycamazon, Toxns, Tricouiias. 

t Ahila, Capercotia, Capitolias, DiocEEsarea, Gadse, Gadara, Gaulame Clima, Ilel- 
enopolis, Hippus, Maximmianopolis, Mennith, Nais, Pella, Raphia, Scythopolis, Se- 
baste, Sozusa, Sycamazon, Tetra Comias, Tiberias, Zabulon. 

t Aila, Areopolis, Arindela. Augustopolis, Birosaba, Cliaracmoba, Eluza, Mamap- 
sora. Mapse, Mitroconiia, Pentacomia, Petra, Pharan, Phaenon, Rabathmoba, Saltus 
Hieraticus, Sodoma, Zoara.— Vide Relandi Palestina, p, 207-214. 

§ Mark, x., 42-44. II Matt., xviii., 2, 3. 



THE PROMISED LAND. 



161 



one is your master, even Christ, and all ye are brethren.'*'** 
In apostolic times, as the infallible record of the Spirit 
of all truth bears, bishops or presbyters, then inter- 
changeable terms, were those whom the Holy Ghost 
made overseers (or bishops) over the fiock^\ and of 
whom there were several, if not many, in one town, as 
at Ephesus and Fhilippi. But in after ages cities de- 
rived their title to that name, which had from thence 
its origin as the seats (sedes) or sees of bishops. And 
the multiplicity of these — on the establishment of a 
hierarchical order, that exercised dominion and lord- 
ship in the Church, as did secular princes in the world 
— may clearly indicate how Palestine was plenteously 
repeopled by another race after the extermination of 
the Jews, and how the other regions of Syria teemed 
as before with an abounding population. In many of 
these cities, if not in all, episcopal dignity was main- 
tained in a manner befitting papal domination ; and the 
ruins of cathedrals, and many other churches once 
magnificent, amid the remains of many towns scattered 
over Syria, show how numerous and splendid were its 
cities in Christian times. 

Jerusalem, indeed, had fallen, and a blighting curse 
rested on the hills of Judah, from which they never 
have recovered. The rightful capital of Christendom, 
and the destined seat of a universal kingdom of truth, 
and righteousness, and peace, raised not its head, even 
in mockery of its true greatness, for many an age. 
Though the Apostle James was the reputed Bishop of 
Jerusalem, and though bishops were but the fifth in or- 
der under the apostolic see of Antioch, whatever Rome 
might boast of concerning one of the apostles, there is 
something worse than a blank in the "apostolic succes- 
sion" of the man who gave the sentence, in which all 
concurred, in "the first council" of the Church, and in 
the primitive seat of Christianity. For, as an arch- 
bishop records, while Syria could count many metro- 
politans and archbishops, with numerous bishoprics 
under each, and others that maintained these titular 
dignities, the Church of Jerusalem, according to tradi- 
tion (on which the whole fabric of high-churchism 
rests), and also on the testimony of Syrian and Grecian 

* Matt., xxiii., 7. t Acts, xx., 17, 28, 

2 



162 



ANCIENT POPULOUSNESS OF 



writers of no nnean authority, had a bishop who enjoyed 
little dignity, or no prerogative whatever, down to the 
days of Justinian in the sixth century.* 

So unseemly a blank in an ordinary pedigree, even if 
unassociated with others of a kindred sort, might, though 
unable to startle a Puseyite or a monk, baffle a master 
in any secular chancery. But though the rightful me- 
tropolis of Christendom had no place for centuries 
among archiepiscopal or metropolitan cities, and though 
no train of unholy successors pretended, for six cen- 
turies, to follow the brother of the Lord, Antioch had 
its magnates in largely compensating numbers, and was 
long, on the ecclesiastical arena, the rival of Alexan- 
dria, Constantinople, and Rome. The city itself boast- 
ed of its three hundred and sixty churches. Ben-Kiliseh^ 
the hill already mentioned, which lies between it and 
the sea, literally signifies the thousand churches^ from the 
vast number with which it was adorned. And the see 
of Antioch, bearing the name of apostolic, exercised au- 
thority over two hundred and three bishops, besides 
eight metropolitans, twelve archbishops, and twenty- 
five principal suffragans, who resided in two hundred 
and forty-eight cities, of which about forty lay beyond 
the bounds of the promised land. Exclusive of these, 
attached to Tyre were thirteen bishoprics ;f to Apamea, 
seven ]% to Hierapolis, eight ;§ to Bostra, nineteen jl| to 
Seleucia, twenty-four ;ir to Damascus, ten to C^sarea 
(on the coast), nineteen jff to Scythopolis, nine ]XX to 

* Juxta traditiones veterum, et etiam qufedam scripta quae auctoritatem habent 
non modicain apud Palestinos, et maxinie Grsecos, Hierosolymitana ecclesia usque ad 
tempora Justiniaiii sanctaj recordationis Augusti, episcopum habuit nulla, vel modica 
dignitatis praerogativa gaudentum. — Will. Tyr., Hist., lib. xxiii., p. 1045, 104'9. 

t Tyr us, 13, Porfirion, Archis, Ptolemais, Sydon, Sarepta, Biblium, Botrion, 
Orthosia, Archados, Autarados, Paneas, Araclis, Tripolis. 

X Apamea, 7, Epiphania, Seleucouila, Larissa, Valanea, Mariam, Raphania, 
Arethusa. 

^ Hierapolis, 8, Zeuma, Surron, Varnalis, Neocaesarea, Perri, Orimon, Dolichi, 
Europi. 

II BosTRUM, 19, Gerasson, Philadelphia, Adraon, Midanon, Austanidon, Delmun- 
don, Zozoyma, Herri, Iceni, Eucuni, Constantia, Paramboli, Dionysia, Conaachon, 
Maximopolis, Philipolis, Chrystopolis, Neilon, Lorea. 

*fr Seleucia, 24, Claudiopolis, Diocassarea, Oropi, Dalisanidos, Seuila, Kelende- 
ris,Anemori, Titopolis, Lamos, Antiochia parva, Hefclia, Ristria, Selenunta, Yocopi, 
Philadelphia parva, Irinopolis, Gerinauicopolis, Mobsea, Demetiopolis, Abidi, Zmo- 
nopolis, Adrasson, Mj^nu, Neapolis. 

** Damascus, 10, Albi, Palinipon, Laodicia, Suria, Konokora, Yabruda, Danabi, 
Karacena, Hui-dani, Surraquini. 

tt C.^;sAREA Maritima, 19, Dora, Antipatrida, lampnias, Nicopolis, Onus, Sos- 
curis, Raphias, Regium Apatos, Regium Ilierico, Regiuin Liuas, Regium Gadaron, 
Azotus Paralias, Asotusippum, Estomason, Estilion, Tricomias, Toxtus, Saltum, 
Coustantiniaquis. 

XX Scythopolis, 9, Capitoliados, Miru, Gadaru, Pelos, Vilisippus, Tettacomias, 
Oluna, Galanis, Komanas. 



THE PROMISED LAND. 



163 



Rabba-Moab, twelve;* to Bitira of Arabia, thirty-five.f 

Besides these, forty-three other cities were occupied by 
independent metropolitans, archbishops, or suffragans. 

Sadly has Syria fallen, when the recapitulation, in the 
text, of its numerous bishoprics would deprive a page 
of all interest, and leave it to be passed over unread, by 
filling it with their long-forgotten and often unknown 
names, that find their fitting place, like those of pagan 
towns, in a note or an appendix, and that serve only, 
like them, to point to ruins, and to trace a resemblance 
in sound to naught but desolate localities now, where 
the ruins of castellated or cathedral cities, covered with 
wood or overgrown with thistles, have been long de- 
serted by dignitaries and tenanted by wild beasts, the 
literal successors to many a proud episcopal throne. 
The record of the names and number of these cities 
which history has transmitted, with the numberless to- 
kens of their fallen greatness, shows how Syria could 
sustain them all, while its own covenanted people, scat- 
tered amono; the nations, as if their wandering-s in the 
desert had been resumed, had not a city to dwell in, 
nor a place on earth whereon to rest their foot. But as 
it is not without cause that the Lord hath done all that He 
hath done to them^ as they and all the world shall know^ 
so it is not without cause that Christian as well as Jew- 
ish cities have fallen, and now lie in mingled ruins, 
from end to end and from side to side of that land, on 
which the eyes of the Lord have been set for judgment 
during many ages, even as He espied it for the people 
of Israel at first, and planted them within it in the sight 
of the heathen. The ruins of these cities, wherever 
they have been discovered, and yet retain memorials of 

* Rabba Moabbitis, 12, Augustopolis, Arindila, Kara, Serapolis, Mempsidos, 
Eulitis, Zora, Virosum, Pentacomia, Maniapson, Mitroconeras, Saltum Hieraticum. 

t Bitira ArabijE, 35, Adrasson, Dias, Medauou, Hierasson, Nein, Filadelfia, 
lerapolis, Estnoss, Neapolis, Themistus, Philipopulus, Dionysia, Constantiuu, Pea- 
tacomias, Tricomias, Canastados, Saltum Votauios, Exacomias, Enacomias, Como- 
gonias, Comogeros, Comosthonis, Coinis, Mahadaron, Comocoreatas, Comis Capron, 
Corais Iiisuauos, Comis Pirroareton, Comis Pecius, Comis Ariathon, Coniis Neotis, 
Clima Anatolis Quevisinon, Comis Ariotas, Comis Trachoaos, Comis Nesdamos. 

Metropolitan!, 7, Deritus, Heliopolis, Laodicia, Samosata, Kyros, Pompeiopolis, 
MopsLieslia. 

Archiepiscopi, 12, Verea, Kalquis, Gabula, Seleucia, Piperia, Anasarphon, Pal- 
tos, Germanicia, Salamias, Varcossos, Fosses, Ananagathon. 

Suffraganearum Prima, 25, Lidda, Joppe, Ascalon, Gaza, Meimas, Diocletian 
opolis, Beitt Gerbein, Neapolis, Sehastia, Jericyntus, Tyberiadis, Diocaesarea, Le- 
gionum, Capitolina, Maaronensis, Gedera, Nazareth, Thabor, Caracha vel Petra, 
Adroga, Afra, iElis, Faram, Elinopolis, Mons Sina.— Will. Tvr., Hist., lib. xxiii., 
p. 1044-6. 



164 



ANCIENT rOPULOUSNESS OF 



what they were, bear witness, as will be seen, that the 
judgments that have come upon them are just j that the 
Gospel was not preached in them as Jesus preached it 
in the cities of Judah and of Galilee ; and that the les- 
son which He taught while sitting wearied, and ahun- 
gered, and athirst on the well of Samaria, was forgotten 
in the land, and fountains that could hold no water were 
resorted to when the wellspring of life was forsaken. 
Men forget that "God is a spirit, and that they that 
worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth."* 
There, as in other lands, the apostacy arose. A pure 
and simple faith assumed the form of paganism. Re- 
lio-ion became an outward show instead of an inward 
power. The pomp of ceremonies was evoked anew 
by the spirit of a revived paganism. Where the apos- 
tles left their nets and their all and followed Jesus, 
men claiming genealogy from them divided the land 
for gain^\ and, contrary to the command of the Au- 
thor of the faith which they professed, exercised lordship 
over God's heritage. The church that was called 
Christ's, unlike to his, was transmuted into a kingdom 
of this world, and pagan paraphernalia took the name 
of Christian rites. The mystery of iniquity which began 
to work in the days of the apostles — concerning which 
many in our own day, forgetful what then began, are 
proud in their blindness, and glory in their shame — was 
developed more and more till transgression came to the 
full, and judgment could no longer tarry. And the wild 
sons of the desert, who claimed Abraham for their fa- 
ther, came in armed myriads at the predicted word, as 
by an appointed sign, to avenge the quarrel of the ever- 
lasting covenant on a race that were not their brethren^ 
nor in any sense the children of faithful Abraham. 

As Jeshurun of old " waxed fat and kicked," and a 
glorious beauty rested on the fat valley of Samaria, 
while the statutes of Omri were kept till judgment 
came, so, while space was given for churches called 
Christian to repent, transgressions were multiplied in 
the land, as in Israel of old, and luxury, together with 
iniquity, had reached its height, w^hen the long-slight- 
ed curse suddenly and fearfully avenged the broken 
covenant. More direct and precise testimony than that 

* John, iv., 24. t Dan., xi., 39. 



THE PROMISED LAND. 



165 



of an enumeration of the nannes of cities is still farther 
in store, in demonstration of that excellence of Israel's 
own land, which gave it a first place among the king- 
doms or provinces of the Roman Empire. Subjugated 
by the mightiest nations of the earth, it has been per- 
manently retained by none, however great their power 
or high their pretensions, even though descendants of 
those who had laid Jerusalem in the dust and subdued 
the world, and the professors of a faith which, if real, 
would have saved its numerous cities from destruction. 

We now come to the time when woes^ denounced by 
that very name in the Word of God, fell upon apostate 
Christendom, or on those who had fallen away from the 
faith once delivered to the saints ; for on such alone 
those woes could fall, which were to touch only those 
men who had not the seal of God upon their foreheads.* 

When Goths, and Vandals, and Huns had long desola- 
ted Italy, and a "barbaric king" reigned over it, Syria 
continued to be one of the fairest provinces, or trib- 
utary kingdoms of the lower empire; and some of its 
regions ranked among the most populous, and some of 
its cities among the most princely in the world. In 
describing the siege of Bosrah on the east, and those of 
Heliopolis and Homs on the north of Palestine — but, on 
either side, far within the borders of Israel's destined 
heritage — Gibbon incidentally testifies the goodliness 
of the land, as it existed down to the Saracenic inva- 
sion, in the seventh century. 

" One of the fifteen provinces of Syria, the cultiva- 
ted lands to the eastward of the Jordan, had been dec- 
orated by Roman vanity with the name of Arabia, and 
the first arms of the Saracens were justified by the re- 
semblance of a national right. The country was en- 
riched by the various benefits of trade ; by the vigilance 
of the emperors it was covered by a line of forts ; and 
the populous cities of Gerasa^ Philadelphia^ and Bosra 
were secure at least from a surprise, by the solid struc- 
ture of their walls. Twelve thousand horse could sally 
from the gates of Bosra. "f " Syria, one of the coun- 
tries that had been improved by the most early culti- 
vation, is not unworthy of the preference. The heat 
of the climate is tempered by the vicinity of the sea 

* Rev., ix., 4. t Gibbon, vol. ix., p. 383, 384. 



166 



ANCIENT POPULOUSNESS OF 



and mountains, by the plenty of wood and water ; and 
the produce of a fertile soil affords the subsistence, 
and encourages the propagation of men and animals. 
From the age of David to that of Heraclius, the coun- 
try was overspread with ancient and flourishing cities j 
the inhabitants were numerous and wealthy; and, after 
the slow ravages of despotism and superstition, after 
the recent calamities of the Persian war, Syria could 
still attract and reward the rapacious tribes of the 
desert. Among the cities which are enumerated by 
Greek and Oriental names in the geography and con- 
quest of Syria, we may distinguish Emesa or Hems, He- 
liopolis or Baalbec, the former as the metropolis of the 
plain, the latter as the capital of the valley. Under the 
last of the Caesars, they were strong and populous; the 
turrets glittered from afar ; an ample space was covered 
with public and private buildings ; and the citizens were 
illustrious by their spirit, or at least by their pride, by 
their riches, or at least by their luxury."* " Chalcis 
alone was taxed at five thousand ounces of gold, five 
thousand ounces of silver, two thousand robes of silk, 
and as many figs and olives as would load five thou- 
sand asses. The terms of capitulation were faithfully 
observed."! "The safety of Antioch was ransomed 
with three hundred thousand pieces of gold ; but the 
throne of the successors of Alexander, the seat of the 
Roman government in the East, was degraded under the 
yoke of the caliphs to the secondary rank of a provin- 
cial town. Bosra, Damascus, Heliopolis, Emesa, Jeru- 
salem, Aleppo, Antioch, fell successively into the hands 
of the Saracens. From the north and south the troops 
of Antioch and Jerusalem advanced along the seashore, 
till their banners were joined under the walls of the Phce- 
nician cities : Tripoli and Tyre w^ere betrayed. Their 
labours were terminated by the unexpected surrender 
of Csesarea. The remainder of the province, Ramlah, 
Ptolemais or Acre, Sichem or JSTeapolis, Gaza, Ascalon, 
Berytus, Sidon, Gabala, Laodicea, Apamea, Hierapolis, no 
lonofer presumed to dispute the will of the conqueror; 
and Syria bowed under the sceptre of the caliphs,"J &c. 
The Saracens formed the first wo — not the last — that 



* Gibbon, vol. ix., p. 403-405. 

% Gibbon's Hist., chap, li., passim. 



t Ibid., p. 407. 



^-IIE PROMISED LAND. 



167 



came on idolatrous Christendom. On their invasion of 
the Roman Empire, Jerusalem was rather to be given 
unto the Gentiles than rescued from them. Ages were 
thereafter to intervene before the land should reach the 
last degree of predicted desolation. The judgments of 
the Lord were to be executed in it on those who had 
anew profaned it by their idolatries. But while this 
charge was given to the Saracens, which, as all students 
of prophecy well know, they failed not to execute, a 
prohibition was simultaneously written in the book of 
the Lord, and as simultaneously issued in the appointed 
time, against laying the land desolate ; and stripped as 
it would finally be, like an oak that had cast its leaves, 
not a tree or o-reen thins" was then to be hurt. It was 
commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the 
earthy neither any green things neither any tree^ but only 
those men that had not the seal of God on their foreheads* 
The unconscious "commander of the faithful" thus is- 
sued his instructions accordingly to the chiefs of the 
Syrian army. " When you fight the battles of the Lord, 
acquit yourselves like men, without turning your backs ; 
but let not your victory be stained with the blood of 
women and children. Destroy no palm-trees, nor burn 
any fields of corn. Cut down no fruit-trees, nor do any 
mischief to cattle, only such as you kill to eat. When 
you make any covenant or article, stand to it, and be as 
good as your word. As you go on, you will find some 
religious persons, who live retired in monasteries; let 
them alone, and neither kill them, nor destroy their 
monasteries ] and you will find another sort of people 
that belong to the synagogue of Satan, who have shorn 
crowns 5 be sure you cleave their sculls, and give them 
no quarter till they either turn Mohammedans or pay 
tribute."! 

" The rapacious tribes of the desert" made Syria 
their own, and richly was their conquest rewarded. 
Notwithstanding " the slow ravages of despotism and 
superstition," and its subjugation to the Persians, to 
whom for fourteen years it had been given for a prey ^ 
till reconquered by Heraclius, Syria could still boast of 
its numerous cities, and its fertile soil sustained a vast 
population. Five thousand ass-loads (proverbially great) 

* Rev., ix., 4. t Gibbon's Hist., vol. ix., p. 381. 



168 



ANCIENT POPULOUSNESS, ETC. 



of figs and olives, necessarily the produce of a single year, 
gave proof, as part of the tax imposed upon one city, that 
the combined excellence of climate and soil were not then 
lost upon man, and that the circumjacent region might lay 
claim to be a portion of a land where every man might sit 
under his own fig-tree, and the lords of which, in the ex- 
pressive language of Scripture, might " dip their feet in oil." 

Edifices of Saracenic structure, scattered over Syria, 
show that these invaders, like the Romans, sought to per- 
petuate their conquest, and made it their work to build rath- 
er than destroy. But these were chiefly mosques or castles, 
the former displacing churches, the latter for repressing the 
inhabitants, as well as resisting foreign foes. " The tribute, 
the Koran, or the sword," were not the heralds of prosperi- 
ty and peace, Syria faded rather than flourished under the 
dominion of those " hordes of fanatics that issued from the 
desert," and whose oflice it was to torment rather than to 
destroy. 

The promised land was to be given only for a limited pe- 
riod to any alien race, while its ancient inhabitants were 
scattered abroad. The Arabs, like the Romans, claimed it 
by right of conquest as their own. But though they appoint- 
ed the land^ which the Lord called His, into their possession 
with the joy of all their heart, and shall still strive to regain or 
retain it, as they first won it by the sword ; and though they 
said, while the stronghold of Zion was in their hands, and 
Saracen fortresses towered throughout the land on the heights 
of Israel, even the high places are ours in possession, yet they 
were there only to execute judgments, as the temporary 
tenants of a land that was not theirs. Their possession of 
it was not unchallenged or undisturbed. After its subjuga- 
tion to them, Judea " ceased not to be the scene of grand 
revolutions."* The victors becoming successively the van- 
quished, it was in after ages the contested territory of Sara- 
cens, Persians, Turks, Egyptians, and Fatimites, till, in still 
more bloody warfare between Christians and Mohamme- 
dans, it became, as described by Gibbon, " the theatre of na- 
tions," where the tragedy of the crusades was enacted — the 
battle-field of Europe, Asia, and Africa. The land which 
men called Christians sought to redeem, by a phrensy that 
matched the fierce fanaticism of Moslems, was thereby 
smitten with another curse. 

* D'Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 269. 



SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OP SYRIA, ETC. 169 



CHAPTER IV. 

SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF SYRIA IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 

" I will give it unto the hands of the strangers for a prey, and to the wicked of the 
earth for a spoil ; and they shall pollute it." — Ezek., vii., 21. 

" Thou land devourest up men, and hast bereaved thy nations."— £zei., xxxTi<; 13. 

Syria, peopled by conflicting races, could scarcely be 
said to repose under the dominion of the caliphs. It was 
at best, as under the Romans, a subjugated country, a prey 
and a spoil to strangers.* The comparatively quiescent 
state which succeeded to its conquest, was soon, from vari- 
ous causes, disturbed anew ; and this prophecy, together 
with many others, ever meets with renewed illustrations in 
all its history, while it was given, age after age, to the wick- 
ed for a prey, the sioord of the Lord shall devour from the 
one end of the land even to the other end of the land ; no flesh 
shall have peace.i Eren the subjugated Christians soon 
persecuted each other. The general council of Constanti- 
nople (A.D. 681) condemned the Maronites ; and, chased 
from the greater part of the cities of Syria, they betook 
themselves to the mountains of Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon. J 
In a few years after, Syria was the scene of fierce contests 
between Ali the cousin and son-in-law of Mohammed, and 
Moaviah, the caliph of the Ommiades, whose cause the Syr- 
ians espoused. § Profiting by their divisions and mutual con- 
flicts, the Maronites descended from their mountains, and 
ravaged all the land from the extremity of Lebanon to the 
vicinity of Jerusalem. || The termination of the dynasty of 
the Ommiades, and the commencement of that of the Abas- 
sides, was marked by great earthquakes, which overthrew 
a great number of churches and monasteries beyond the 
Jordan and throughout Syria, and the violent and frequent 
shocks destroyed many cities.^ The death of Haroun-al- 
Raschid (A.D. 808) plunged Syria into new calamities. 
While his sons disputed for the empire, various usurpers 
invaded and ravaged Syria. Eleuiheropolis, the capital of 

* Ezek., vii., 21. t Jer., xii., 12. 

t Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientate, p. 557. ^ Ibid., p. 90-93, 588, 9. 

II Guene, Lettres, Mem. de Litt6rature, torn, iii., p. 318. % Ibid., p. 319. 

P 



170 



SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF SYRiA 



Idumea, was destroyed, and that flourishing city never re- 
covered from its overthrow. Ascalon, Gaza, Sariphea, and 
many other cities were pillaged, and the barbarians spread 
everywhere desolation and terror. These troubles contin- 
ued till towards the close of the ninth century ; the caliph- 
ate of Bagdad itself began to be shaken by the insurrection- 
ary Turks ; and when the Saracenic Empire was dismem- 
bered, Syria was convulsed.* 

The Arabs have never ceased, by predatory inroads or 
forced possession, to devour the land over which they could 
HO longer solely domineer, and they did not suffer so fair a 
region to be wrested from their grasp without repeated des- 
olating wars. But the energy of their empire had departed, 
and Syria could no longer be retained. The Thoulounid 
Turks, first slaves, then masters, having obtained in Egypt 
all of sovereignty but the name, Syria became the scene 
of their warfare with the caliphs. Ahmet, ruling uncon- 
trolled in Egypt, like a modern despot, passed (A.D. 874) 
from thence as a conqueror to the farthest bounds of Syria, 
and subjected to his sway Damascus. Hamah, Aleppo, and 
Antioch.] His conquests were rapidly succeeded by re- 
newed and incessant contests for the revenue and sover- 
eignty of Syria. :j: A meteor-domination, blazing, blasting, 
and dying away, was then the form that despotism assumed, 
while at intervals the smouldering ashes of the caliphate 
sent forth their scorching gleams. Whenever the Turkish 
supremacy began, the government of qities and territories 
was bartered for gold. For that of Kinnesrin and Aouasem, 
four hundred and fifty thousand pieces of gold annually were 
offered by Haroun, and accepted, at a time when it could 
be maintained only by the Turkish cimeter, and the posses- 
sion of it was insecure for a single year. 

In the first year of the tenth century anew cause of com- 
motion arose in that troubled and distracted land ; and for a 
time it seemed as if Mohammed himself was about to be 
superseded by Caramath, another warlike prophet, " whose 
creed overturned all the foundations of Mohammedanism. "§ 

* Guene, Lettres, M6m. de Litt6rature, torn, iii., p. 320, 321. 

t Histoire Gen6rale des Hims, des Turcs, &c., par De Guignes, torn, ii., p. 131, 
132. Ahmed amassed immense treasures, which he left to his children, viz., a mill- 
ion of pieces of gold, seven thousand slaves, a vast number of horses, mules, camels, 
■&C. In his time the revenue of Egypt amounted to three hundred millions of pieces 
of gold.— Ibid., p. 135. 

t Histoire G^n6rale des Huns, des Turcs, &c., par De Guignes, torn, ii., p. 135- 
141. () D'Herbelot, B'.bliotheque Orieiitale, p. 256. 



DURING THE MIDDLE AGES. 



171 



The new faith which called its votaries to war, originating 
in Chaldea, speedily overspread Syria and the neighbouring 
provinces. The greatest efforts of the Carmathians were 
directed against Syria. They defeated the forces of the 
garrison of Damascus in several encounters, and besieged 
that city. Haroun advanced to the rescue, and slew the 
chief of the Carmathians in a battle in which about twenty 
thousand fell. So rapid had been the growth of the new- 
born faith, that it sustained the shock. The discomfited but 
resolute fanatics having retired to Emesa, and recruited 
their strength and redoubled their numbers, subjected Syria 
to a second and more disastrous warfare, laid Damascus 
under contribution, and ravaged the environs of Hamah, 
Maarah, and Baalhec. The inhabitants of Salamia resisted 
and repelled them ; but on their returning with renewed 
impetuosity to the charge, they capitulated and opened their 
gates, when the savage conquerors put them all to an indis- 
criminate slaughter, without distinction of age or sex ; and 
after such a sacrifice, their chief, assuming the title of Ma- 
hadi-Emir-el-Moumianin, ordered public prayers to be made 
in his name.* 

The caliph, courageous to combat a fallen foe, seized the 
opportunity which their feebleness afforded, of striving, by 
a powerful effort, to destroy the Thoulounid Turks, and by 
subverting their dominion, to restore that of the Abassides. 
The ill-fated Damascus was again a prey. Palestine be- 
came the scene of contest for deciding the sovereignty of 
rival caliphs. But the first short-lived Turkish dynasty in 
Egypt was speedily destroyed (A.D. 905), and Syria again 
owned the Arab as its master. f 

In extinguishing the power of his antagonist, the caliph 
exhausted his own. " The provinces of the Saracenic Em- 
pire became the prey of numerous petty sovereigns." Syria 
was ravaged by the Carmathians. A new dynasty arose, 
that of the Ikhschid Turks, of which Abou-Bekr-Moham- 
med was the founder, who subdued Syria by his influence 
and his arms. The feeble caliph (A.D. 935) abandoned 
the country which he could no longer either reconquer or 
rule. I The power that constitutes the second loo has been 
more fortunate than that which formed the first. No Chris- 
tian arm was raised to save Syria for the caliph. The 
cause of the difference may, at no distant day, be obvious. 

* De Guignes, tora. ii., p. 145, 146. t Ibid., p. 146, 147. t Ibid., p. 147, 148. 



172 



SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF SYRIA 



The second wo arose beyond the bounds of Christendom, 
while many of the elements of the third have to be gathered 
from within it — and a preparatory work has to be done by 
the kings of the earth — before the greatest and last of bat- 
tles shall be fought on the plains of Palestine. 

Syria was soon torn again by rival aspirants to unchal- 
lenged sovereignty over it, and was divided for a time be- 
tween the governor of Damascus and the ruler of Egypt ; 
and when the former was slain, the latter retook Da?nascus 
and other cities, and the subjugated land of Israel, ransom- 
ed from the fetters of Bagdad, was smitten with the rod of 
Egypt, wielded by a Turk (A.D. 942) * 

But the land had no rest from war. The Hamadanites, 
an Arab dynasty, contented with that of the Ikhschidites for 
its possession. They invaded Syria, took Aleppo, gained a 
battle between Sarmin and Maarah, and besieged Damas- 
cus ; but, after various encounters and battles at Rostan, 
Hamah, and Kinnesrin, the peace of Syria seemed to be 
consolidated by the marriage of the son and daughter of the 
rival princes, whose fierce combats led not to the entire 
overthrow of either. The land and the cities suffered from 
both, and the hope of peace was delusive, for the war was 
soon renewed, and Aleppo retaken. f Ikhschid's death, in- 
stead of healing the troubles of an agitated county, introdu- 
ced still greater, and made Syria again a prize for com- 
batants. 

So ephemeral is the greatness, and so vain the glory of 
man, that Ikhschid's name may now seem that of an un- 
known man, unworthy of a place in history. Yet his was 
a power greater than that of a modern lord of Egypt who 
has filled the world with his fame. A Turkish dynasty 
then, in the beginning of the days of their pride, was not to 
be measured by that of the sultan now, in those of their de- 
cline. The Caliph of Egypt mustered in his armies four 
hundred thousand men ; and far mightier hosts contended 
for the possession of Syria in the ninth, as for hundreds of 
years thereafter, than heretofore in the nineteenth century. 
He could then trample upon Christians, and provoke Eu- 
rope to war. His persecutions and exactions, which brought 
church goods to the hammer,;}; presenting an example which 
successive conquerors were not slack to follow, prepared 



* De Guig-nes, torn, ii., p. 149. t Ibid., p. 150, 151. 



% Ibid., p. 152. 



/ 



DURING THE MIDDLE AGES. 173 

the way for those unparalleled and continuous wars of which 
Syria was for centuries the scene. 

His demise roused the Carmathians, invigorated again 
with the hopes of conquest. Ramlah was the field of an- 
other battle ; Damascus was retaken by the victorious Turks. 
New enemies arose. A large army of Greeks, under Ni- 
cephorus, entered Syria. They who before were contending 
for the prey, combined against the assailants who sought to 
seize it from them all, and to restore the days of Roman 
despotism (A.D. 965). 

Nicephorus and John Zimisces, " the two heroes of the 
age, forced and secured the narrow passes of Mount Ama- 
nus, and carried their arms into the heart of Syria." An- 
tioch was taken by surprise. " The first tumult of slaugh- 
ter and rapine subsided ; and the efforts of a hundred 
thousand Saracens, of the armies of Syria and the fleets of 
Africa, were consumed without eflTect before the walls of 
Antioch. The royal city of Aleppo was subject to Seifed- 
donlat, of the dynasty of Hamadan, whose precipitate re- 
treat abandoned his kingdom and capital to the Roman in- 
vaders. In his stately palace, that stood without the wall 
of Aleppo, they joyfully seized a well-furnished magazine of 
arms, a stable of fourteen hundred mules, and three hundred 
bags of silver and gold. But the walls of the city withstood 
the strokes of their battering-rams, and the besiegers pitched 
their tents on the neighbouring mountain of .Taushan. Their 
retreat exasperated the quarrel of the townsmen and mercena- 
ries ; the guard of the gates and ramparts was deserted ; and 
while they furiously charged each other in the market-place, 
they were surprised and destroyed by the sword of a com- 
mon enemy. The male sex was exterminated by the sword ; 
ten thousand youths were led into captivity ;. the weight 
of the precious spoil exceeded the strength and number of 
the beasts of burden ; the superfluous remainder was burn- 
ed ; and, after a licentious possession of ten days, the Ro- 
mans marched away from the naked and bleeding city. In 
their Syrian inroads, they commanded the husbandmen to 
cultivate their lands, that they themselves, in the ensuing 
season, might reap the benefit. More than a hundred cities 
were reduced to obedience ; and eighteen pulpits of the 
principal mosques were committed to the flames, to expiate 
the sacrilege of the disciples of Mohammed. The classic 
names of Hierapolis. Apamea, and Emesa revive for a mO' 

P 2 



174 



SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF SYRIA 



ment in the list of conquests : the Emperor Zimisces en- 
camped in the paradise of Damascus, and accepted the ran- 
som of a submissive people ; and the torrent was only stop- 
ped by the impregnable fortress of Tripoli^ on the seacoast 
of Phcenicia."* 

But the time had gone by in which Roman or Grecian 
despotism could permanently resume the mastery of Syria. 
" The powers of the East," says Gibbon, " had been bent, 
not broken, by the transient hurricane." The Roman con- 
querors retired or were driven beyond the Taurus, and their 
combined foes became mutual combatants again ; for when, 
in the following year, a youth of eleven years of age occu- 
pied the seat of the Egyptian caliphs, his troops overran 
and obtained the mastery of Syria, they were speedily rout- 
ed and chased from thence ; but, on returning with increas- 
ed numbers to repel its rebellious inhabitants, they had no 
sooner subjugated them anew than they were encountered 
and overthrown by mightier foes. While in Egypt and 
Syria dynasty after dynasty rose and fell, that of the Thou- 
lounid Turks in thirty-seven years (from A.D. 868 to 905), 
and that of the Ikhschidite Turks in a shorter period (A.D. 
935 to 969), Mahadi Abdallah, a descendant of Phatime, the 
daughter of Mohammed, laid in Africa the foundations of a 
powerful empire ; the fate of Syria was decided in a suc- 
cession of battles at Ramlah ; it was constrained to yield to 
other spoliators ; the kingdom of the Ikhschidites was over- 
thrown, and that of the Phatimites established. f 

Their domination over Syria was subverted by that of 
Malek Schah, the third sultan of the Seljoucid Turks, whose 
kingdom extended to the frontier of China. But, mighty 
conqueror as he was, like his father, Alp-Arslan, the con- 
quest of Syria was no easy task. Bent on the destruction 
of the Phatimites, he first sent into that land a powerful 
army, under the command of his cousin Solyman, in order 
to reduce it to his obedience. After a long siege, reduced 
to famime, Damascus surrendered. Emesa, and a great 
part of Syria, as far as Antioch, yielded to his power ; but, 
having penetrated into Egypt, his army was repelled from 
thence, and, returning to Syria, ravaged it anew, and pillaged 
Jerusalem.^ Contending armies flocked to the land of Is- 
rael, the scene of a renewed warfare, in which not its fate 

. * Gibbon's Hist., x., p. 88-91. t De Gulgnes, torn, ii., p. 152-154. Herbelot, 
i Ibid., p. 216. 



DURING THE MIDDLE AGES. 



175 



alone, but that of powerful rival dynasties, was decided. 
The war was carried on throughout all parts of Syria. The 
King of Moussul besieged Aleppo * The brother having 
followed the cousin of Malek Schah at the head of Turkish 
armies, the severity of the contest demanded the presence 
of that monarch himself to achieve the conquest of Syria. 
The prey of the Phatimites for a hundred years was torn 
from their grasp. It might seem that when a mighty con- 
queror won it, its possession would have been secure for 
ages ; but no sooner had it fallen into the hands of the Sel- 
joucian princes than they warred with one another, and 
Syria resumed its wonted character of a kingdom divided 
against itself. But its past wars were as petty enterprises, 
when the time was come in which, more than ever on any 
spot on earth, Syria was the arena of conflicts in which all 
the world took part, and the prize for which it fought. 

" Destruction upon destruction is cried," said the prophet 
concerning the land of Israel, and its history is a continued 
echo to the cry. The experiment has been tried, and need 
not be repeated, whether nations called Christian can estab- 
lish "the kingdom of Jerusalem" while the Jews are not 
there, and any other throne than that of the Son of David 
set up. 

From the days of Alexander the Great, the dynasties of 
Seleucus and Ptolemy, in Assyria and Egypt, alternately 
lorded over Palestine, though the tribe of Judah continued 
unbroken. On the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, 
their supremacy was undisputed, and Syria was a province 
of the empire till the Arabs of the desert subdued the de- 
generate sons of the conquerors of the world. In a brief 
space, whenever the dismemberment of the Saracenic Em- 
pire began, hordes of spoliators flocked successively, and 
sometimes simultaneously, under chiefs aspiring to its sov- 
ereignty, from all the surrounding countries. But a new 
era in its history, unique in that of the world, commenced 
with the Crusades. 

The siege of Antiocht (A.D. 1098) was the first grand 
essay of the Crusaders within the bounds of the patrimonial 
inheritance of Israel. A brief notice of the siege may con- 

* De Guignes, torn, ii., p. 217. 

+ Willermi Tyrensis, Archiep. Hist., p. 686-727. De Guignes' Hist., torn, iii.,' 
p. 85, &c, 



176 



SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF SYRIA 



vey some idea of the wars in Syria which then began. 
Antioch, at the close of the tenth century, was a glorious 
and noble city, the third, if not the second, in greatness and 
rank, after Rome, being esteemed by many superior to Al- 
exandria.* A few years previous to its siege, the greater 
part of the walls had been thrown down by an earthquake ; 
but the time was not come in which they were suffered to 
lie for many days, as now for many ages, in ruins. For 
seven months it defied all the power and art of hosts of cru- 
saders, headed by many valiant knights of Europe ; and 
though reduced to famine, it was taken by stratagem rather 
than by force. The merciless conquerors disgraced the 
Christian name alike by the gross immoralities practised 
during the siege, befitting the votaries of Apollo, but mon- 
strous in the reputed followers of the cross, and by the sav- 
age atrocities committed in the day of their stolen triumph. 
The city was given for a prey. The Archbishop of Tyre, 
the chief historian of the Crusades, confesses that the pillage 
was universal and the slaughter indiscriminate, while the 
shrieks of the women were everywhere heard amid the pre- 
vailing carnage, and that in one day ten thousand citizens 
were slain, whose unburied bodies covered the highways. 
The houses of the rich were first sought out, broken open, 
and pillaged by bands of the Crusaders. Fathers, mothers, 
children, and servants were put to the sword. Vases, gold, 
silver, costly vestures, &c., were seized and shared by the 
rapacious and murderous conquerors. f Other historians 
relate that in the sack of the city a hundred thousand per- 
ished, and that the captured treasures were immense.^ 
The city taken became speedily again like a besieged city, 
within which its victors were shut up. But their fanatical 
courage, roused by the reputed discovery of the lance that 
pierced the side of Christ, bore them victorious through a 
fierce battle, fought with a vast army of Persians who had 
come too tardily, and all in vain, to the rescue of Antioch. 
The gold and silver taken in the spoil were converted into 
candlesticks, crosses, chalices, priestly vestments, and other 
church utensils. The altars that the Moslems had thrown 
down were re-erected ; the images were restored, and when 
fractured, renewed ; the patriarchate of Antioch was re-es. 
tablished, in all the plenitude of pontifical authority. After 



* WiU. Tyr., p. 686. 

t De Guignes, ibid., p. 93. 



t Ibid., p. 711. 

^ WiU. Tyr., p. 727. 



DURING THE MIDDLE AGES. 



177 



the immolation of thousands of victims and the sack of one 
of the richest cities in the world, the church began to reap 
the secular fruits of the secular war it had provoked, to 
which it were profanation to give the name of holy ; and 
as many a churchman bore lance in the tented field, bishop- 
rics were speedily established throughout the neighbouring 
cities which had been wont to hold a cathedral dignity. 
Such was the nature, and such were some of the results of 
the first conquest in Syria, so soon as the Crusaders were 
established in that city, where men of the purest morals and 
of the most peaceful habits, the children of a kingdom not 
of this world, in whose hearts Jesus reigned, and who pro- 
fessed the faith as it is in Him in all its simplicity, were 
first called Christians. 

A summary the most succinct may be given of the cru- 
sading wars within the bounds of Syria, as they bore most 
disastrously on its state ; and as they illustrate what was 
the strength of its cities, from the sieges ihey withstood, 
how goodly was the prize for which Christendom and Mo- 
hammedanism contended for ages — how the cause of the 
desolation of so many cities may be patent to the world — 
how strangers devoured the land — and how the land itself, 
not unavenged, bereaved the natio7is of men, in a more re- 
markable manner and degree than any other country evei 
did. To mark the nature of these wars, as witnessed by 
the first glance at Antioch, is to see their end. The king- 
dom which it was their object to establish, though nominally 
that of Jerusalem, could not stand. 

The strong city of Alhara, two days' journey south of 
Antioch, was next besieged, and its citizens forced to an 
unconditional surrender by the Count of Toulouse, who, on 
the capture of the city and subjugation of the adjoining ter- 
ritory, immediately set over it a bishop, on whom he con- 
ferred the half of the city and of all the territory. A se- 
verer fate awaited Maarali, also a strongly-fortified city, eight 
miles distant. The besiegers and the besieged launched on 
each other Greek fire, stones, and enormous rocks ; and 
hives full of bees were also cast on the assailants. In spite 
of the desperate resistance of the inhabitants, the city was 
taken by force ; the Franks (a more befitting name than 
that of Christians) entered it sword in hand, and the inhab- 
itants were delivered to the fury of the soldiers,* The 

* Will. Tyr., p. 733. 



178 



SKETCH OP THE HISTORY OF SYRIA 



Arab historians relate tliat an offered treaty caused division 
in the city, profiting by which the enemy entered, and 
slaughtered both parties. Some escaped the general mas- 
sacre, who had fled to a palace, and were made prisoners, 
whom manacles awaited. A city so fair, and a territory so 
fertile, tempted the stay of some of the heroes of the Cru- 
sades who had come from Europe to set Jerusalem free. 
The wrath of their fanatic followers was thereby provoked, 
who, when vainly vociferating to be led on to the Holy City, 
forced their departure by razing to the foundations the tow- 
ers and walls of Maarah* 

Intimidated, it may be, by such massacres, the cities of 
Csesarea, Hamah, Emesa, Ramlah, and a great number of 
other cities of Syria, suffering the Crusaders to pass, main- 
tained with them a temporary peace. To escape pillage, 
they brought food to the invaders ; those which dared to 
resist were taken by assault : and thus passing through the 
states of the princes of Syria, they reached Jerusalem.! 

The sack of Jerusalem, after a siege of forty days, was 
no less horrible than that of Antioch. So great was the 
slaughter of the enemy, says the Archbishop of Tyre, and 
so great the effusion of blood, that it could even strike the 
victors with horror. Within the precincts of the Temple 
ten thousand were slain, and not a lesser number in the 
streets. The rest of the army, not engaged in such gen- 
eral massacre, searched throughout the lanes and houses 
for those who, in fear of death, sought concealment, and 
dragged them forth openly to execution, to be slain like 
beasts.:}: According to other historians, a hundred thousand 
perished.^ The old and infirm were all slain ; the women 
were seized ; those who were spared were made prisoners. 
The spoil in gold, silver, and gems, together with sixty-six 
chandeliers of gold and silver, was incalculable, or, as ex- 
pressed, of infinite abundance. || 

The loss of so many cities and so great wealth spread 
.consternation among all the Mussulmen. When the tidings 
of the fall of Jerusalem reached Bagdad, and some fugitives 
were introduced to the divan of the caliph, all wept at the 
melancholy tale, and tore their beards in their bitter lam- 
entations. But, says the historian, they could give nothing 



* Will. Tyr., p. 734. De Guignes, torn, iii., p. 98, 

t De Guignes, torn, iii., p. 99. 

§ De Guignes' Hist., torn, iii, p. 99, 



t Will. Tyr., p. 759. 
II WiU. Tyr., 759-761. 



DURING THE MIDDLE AGES, 



179 



but their tears ; they had none to send to chase the Franks 
from Syria.* The first wo had then passed. But by im- 
penitent wickedness, and aggravated iniquities, and the res- 
toration of idolatry througliout Syria, and in Jerusalem it- 
self, the way was speedily preparing for the second. The 
conquering Crusaders, then instruments in the execution of 
judgments, had, in other days, to supply illustrations that, 
though hand join in hand, iniquity shall not pass unpunished 
— that vengeance belongs unto the Lord, and that He will 
repay. 

The short reign, for a single year, of Godfrey, duke of 
Lorraine,! instead of being sufficient for the consolidation 
of a new kingdom, or the restoration of peace to Palestine, 
was not only imbittered with contests with the patriarch to 
whom he conceded the fourth part of the city, but Avas 
scarcely begun when the prince of Egypt, then the most 
potent in the East, advanced with vast hosts in order to drive 
out the " barbarian" invaders. The spirit of fanaticism had 
been roused anew by the capture of Jerusalem, and again 
they overthrew their enemies near to Ascalon ; but that city, 
which afterward threatened Jerusalem, they did not then 
venture to assault, and they laid siege to Tyre in vain.| 

Baldwin, the second king, had to fight his way from 
Edessa to Jerusalem ; and the history of his reign of eigh- 
teen years is chiefly comprised in that of sieges and battles, 
from one extremity of Syria to the other. Neither unity, 
righteousness, nor peace prevailed in Jerusalem. The pa- 
triarch, who had sought to appropriate as his own the whole 
city, fearing the approach of the king, betook himself to the 
Church of Zion. Baldwin besieged Ascalon in vain. The 
lawless inhabitants of the plains, freed from the dominion 
of their former tyrants, and not courting the protection of a 
Christian prince, fled before him, and sought refuge in caves, 
from whence they were driven by fire and suffocating smoke, 
and compelled thereby to an unconditional surrender. On 
his passing to the land of Moab, and the more northern re- 
gions east of the Jordan, the inhabitants deserted the plains 
and fled to the mountains ; but, rushing suddenly on a large 
band of them by night, while most of the men escaped, the 
new possessors of Palestine seized the women and the chil- 
dren, and all their substance for a prey, and carried with them 

* De Guignes, p, 99. t WiU, T^r., p. 763-775, i Ibid., p. 781, 782v 



180 



SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF SYRIA 



immense spoil (spolia infinita) and a vast number of cam- 
els,* &c. Such was the mode of what was called Chris- 
tian domination in Syria. 

Presuming on Divine aid, the king, having collected all 
his forces, went forth to extend his kingdom, and laid siege 
to Arsur or Antlpatris, which, after fierce assaults, and a 
breach in the walls of the castle, was taken. The renown- 
ed CcBsarea was next his prey. Besieged by sea and land 
with projectile machines placed around, one of which, of 
marvellous height, was far higher than the walls, the tow- 
ers and walls were shaken, the houses within were broken 
down, and the incessant assaults gave no rest to the citi- 
zens. The resistance became feebler from day to day, the 
assaults more fierce and determined ; the walls were sud- 
denly scaled and occupied ; the king entered with his for- 
ces into the city, thus taken at last by storm. Csesarea had 
rivalled Antioch. Each was built in honour of a king ; 
each was the seat of royalty, and the scene of gayety, where 
princely games were celebrated, and the citizens rioted in 
godless pleasures : and the one could now cope with the 
other in the horrors of the siege and sack, those of Caesarea 
equalling those of Antioch, of which they were a counter- 
part. The cool description of the archbishop may indicate 
how familiar were such scenes to the knights and priests 
of the Crusades, and how the raising anew of one archiepis- 
copal throne after another was preluded by the outpouring 
of torrents of blood. 

The armed soldiers, running everywhere throughout the 
city, took possession of the courts and strongholds where 
the citizens sought safety, broke open the houses, and, put- 
ting many to death, seized all that was valuable. Of those 
whom they found in the streets and lanes of the city it is 
needless to speak {super jiiium est disserere), since even 
those who carefully betook themselves to passages and se- 
cret places could not escape the carnage. On an elevated 
part of the city, where formerly stood a temple of admirable 
workmanship, erected by Herod in honour of Augustus, 
there was a public oratory. Thither, in the hope of con- 
certing means for their safety, most of the citizens had fled, 
to the place where orations were wont to be made. But 
there was then another war than that of words. When it 
was burst open by the foe, such was the carnage, that the 

* Will. Tyr., p. 781, 782, 



DURING THE MIDDLE AGES. 



181 



feet of the slayers were imbrued in the blood of the slain, 
and the multitude of corpses was a horrible spectacle. In 
the oratory was found a vase of the brightest green, like an 
emerald, which the Genoese purchased at a great price, as 
an ornament for their church ! In various parts of the city 
almost all the adult inhabitants were slain, and scarcely was 
mercy shown to youths of either sex. " Here, indeed, we 
may behold to the letter," says the archbishop, " what was 
written by the prophet, ' The Lord delivered their valiant 
men into captivity, and their strong men into the hands of 
the enemy.' Therefore, when the sword was at rest, and 
the slaughter of the people consummated, all the spoil and 
the household effects were collected together, and, accord- 
ing to agreement, the third part was allotted to the Genoese, 
and the rest to the king's household followers. Here, for 
the first time, our people, who had entered the country poor 
and needy, and had laboured under great want till that day, 
now loaded with booty and enriched with money, began to 
live sumptuously. The king, being recalled by urgent af- 
fairs, having chosen as archbishop one named Baldwin who 
had come to the expedition under Godfrey, and having left 
a garrison in the city, hastened with the rest of the troops 
to Ramlah."* 

Anything approaching to a full detail of the incessant 
wars by which Syria was ravaged throughout all its borders 
would fill a large volume. As there was no rest for the 
Jews scattered throughout the world, the land itself had 
none from the many nations which came up against it. 
The alternation of victory and defeat, and of the capture and 
renewed siege of cities, gave no pause to the work of 
slaughter, spoliation, and destruction. The land of Israel 
became, as it were, an outspread altar, in which human 
sacrifices were offered continually. Its numerous fortified 
cities, in the hands of hostile princes, became its bane rath- 
er than its defence. City was set against city, as army 
against army. The environs of a fortified town were no 
sooner ravaged and laid waste, than, on the withdrawing of 
the foe, its revengeful inhabitants sallied forth to retaliate 
the wrong, wherever a defenceless city could be found ; 
and Jerusalem itself was thus repeatedly assailed. 

Such was the insecurity of the throne of Jerusalem, that, 
goon after the capture of Ceesarea, the king was a solitary 

* Wm. Tyr., Hist., p. 784, 785. 

Q 



182 SKETCH OF THE HISTOIIY OP SYJIIA 

fugitive. Advancing to repel the invading Egyptians, he 
discomfited them in the first encounter on the plains of 
Ramlah, with the slaughter of 5000 men. Returning with 
a fourfold re-enforcement, they wreaked their vengeance 
on the vanquished army of the Crusaders, the remnant of 
which found refuge within the walls of Ramlah. Escaping 
from thence to Antipairis, the king rallied his forces, and 
reconquered his enemies. The cause of the Crusades re- 
vived. Tortosa was taken by new emigrants from Europe. 
The intrepid Tancred assembled all his forces in the north 
of Syria, and besieged the noble city of Apa?nea, then the 
capital of Ccele-Syria, by the capture of which he greatly 
extended the boundaries of his principality. Laodicea, peo- 
pled by Greeks, submitted to his authority. Ptolemais, 
which repelled a first siege, fell in the second. Tripoli was 
taken by stratagem : Berytus, after a siege by sea and 
land. Danes and Norwegians, descending on Syria, len' 
their aid to the siege and capture of Sidon* 

These temporary triumphs of the Crusaders, having 
roused the fear and vengeance of their enemies, brought on 
them new hosts of foes.f While the Egyptians fought in 
vain with Baldwin in the south of Syria, the King of Mous- 
sul and other Moslem princes, with an army of 60,000 
Turks, assailed the Franks in the north of Syria. The 
King of Aleppo, at the head of half that number, threatened 
Damascus, of which, while in previous amity with the Cru- 
saders, he had been constituted the protector. The new 
war, carried on with varied success and manifold desola- 
tions, terminated in favour of the Crusaders, who became 
masters of Ariesia. But new enemies speedily arose : 
among others, the Assassins, who gave rise to the name 
which appropriately designates them, and were dangerous 
alike to Christians and Mussulmen. They seized Apamea, 
which was besieged and retaken. Thoghteghin, king of 
Damascus, again and again ravaged the territories of Tile- 
rias and Sidon, and blockaded these cities. He destroyed 
the fortress of Arclias, and the environs of Tyre, of which 
he raised the siege ; while the Syrians revolting, besieged 
Damascus. The previous armies that had passed the Eu- 
phrates having sunk before European valour, the Sultan of 
Persia summoned all the Mussulmen to a religious war, 
and 200,000 Turkish troops were mustered in the armies 

* Will. Tyr., p. 786-9, &c. t De Guignes' Hist., torn, iii., p. 103, 108, passim, 



DtJEING THE MIDDLE AGES* 



183 



of Syria. The King of Damascus joined his forces with 
those of Maudoud (Menduc), a powerful Persian prince, 
who besieged Tiberias for three months, and ravaged all 
Its vicinity.* " There was no end," says the archbishop, 
" of the infinite multitude that broke into the kingdom of 
Jerusalem." They laid waste the plains and harassed the 
cities. The Crusaders in vain strove to withstand them, 
and were defeated and pursued with so great and unspa- 
ring slaughter, that the king himself, casting away the stand- 
ard which he bore, and the patriarch, together with other 
princes who accompanied them, were scarcely saved by 
flying to the mountains. The army of the enemy, in separ- 
ate divisions spread over the plains, converted the highways 
into scenes of slaughter, ravaged the land by fire and sword, 
devastated the suburban regions, assaulted walled cities, 
and passed as freely throughout Syria as if it had been sub- 
ject to their sole dominion (A.D. 1013). The Saracens of 
the land united with the invaders : and such was the terror 
that reigned throughout all the kingdom, that no one dared 
to be seen beyond the walls. Enemies from the south, as 
well as from the north and east, rushed on the miserable 
kingdom of Jerusalem ; and that city itself was besieged 
by the Ascalonites, as it had previously been threatened by 
the Turks."! 

Some of the cities of Syria, though secure against their 
foes, were visited at the same time by terrible and exten- 
sive earthquakes. Several cities were reduced to heaps of 
stone, and the inhabitants dispersed throughout the plains, 
while many perished in the ruins. But the sword did not 
rest, though the fortune of war was changed. Turks, when 
victorious, strove, like the Christians, for the prey. The 
King of Damascus united with the Franks ; and when 
Maudoud had been assassinated, the Sultan of Persia sent 
another army of 46,000 men across the Euphrates (A.D. 
1115). They entered the territory of Antioch, and besieged 
Roha, where many Franks and Armenians were slain ; 
they laid waste all the environs of Samosata and Saroudge, 
or Rugia, and many other neighbouring cities which belonged 
to the Franks, and made prisoner William of Percy, who 
commanded that country. Hamah, then a city of the King 
of Damascus, was besieged and taken, and given up to pil- 
lage. But their desolating career w^as stayed. Many ene- 

* De Guig-nes' Hist., torn, iii., p. Ill, 118. t Will. Tyr., p. 807, 808. 



184 



SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF SYRIA 



mies combined against them ; and, being suddenly assailed 
when separated in three divisions, one of these fell under 
the arms of the Franks, another perished in the River Phar- 
phar, and the third was attacked and defeated by Thoghte- 
ghin, who slew of them 3000 men.* His peace with the 
Crusaders was speedily at an end ; and when a band of 
Turks sought to take possession of Rapliania, they all fell 
beneath his sword. The kingdom of Aleppo became a 
province of the Otrokides, who thenceforth carried on a 
vigorous war with the Franks, who had driven them from 
Judea. 

Such was the reign of Baldwin, the first of the name who 
was King of Jerusalem. That of his son was not less 
bloody, nor less checkered with triumph and disasters, or 
less uniform in the multiplicity of the desolating raids of the 
spoliators of Syria. The military events which were con- 
centrated in his reign of twelve years are too numerous to 
be defined, and the mere recital of the chief of them may 
show how that country continued unceasingly to be a troub- 
led and a bleeding land. On the south, in the first year 
of his reign, it was invaded by an Egyptian army, desig- 
nated an infinite multitude ; to repel which, the king with- 
drew his forces from Tripoli and Antioch.f In the west, 
Gazzi, general of the Turkomans, joined with other foes, 
invaded the territories of Antioch and Aleppo ; and, obtain- 
ing the mastery, carried on an exterminating war. Roger, 
prince of Antioch, was slain, and his newly-recruited army 
annihilated. The king, hastening to the combat, defeated 
his enemies in a desperate battle, in which 4000 of them 
fell-l A new invasion of the same region occupied his 
collected forces : while the King of Damascus, allied with 
the Arabs, ravaged the territory of Tiberias. With a re- 
venge that slumbered not, the king besieged Gerasa, took 
and razed it.^ Called from thence to rescue his kingdom 
from the frequent and fierce irruptions of Balac, a powerful 
Turkish prince, the king himself was taken, and, bound 
with chains, was carried beyond the Euphrates. || The 
kingless kingdom, again also the prey of Egypt, was, as in 
the days of his father, threatened with extinction. But the 
crusading phrensy was still strong in Europe, and myriads 
rushed to the field of blood into which the whole land of 

* De Guignes, p. 114, 115. t Will. Try., p. 818. t WiU. Tyr., p. 823. 
De Guignes, p. 117, || Will. Tyr., p. 825. 



DURING THE MIDDLE AGES. 



185 



Israel had been converted. The Duke of Venice timely- 
arrived with a numerous fleet, which, as the record bears, 
gloriously triumphed over that of Egypt. Baalbec was be- 
sieged by Balac ; Jerusalem was again repeatedly assailed ; 
and Tyre, after a vigorous, bloody, and long-protracted 
siege, reduced by famine rather than by force, surrendered 
by capitulation. 

The fall of Tyre roused anew all the forces of the East 
against the countries possessed by the Franks.* Baldwin, 
released after a captivity of eighteen months, again headed 
his armies, and paid his ransom with the blood of his ene- 
mies. The latter part of his reign was a repetition of the 
first, in incessant contests, of varied issues, and in different 
localities, with Egyptians, Turks, and Arabs, &;c. ; but, 
whoever prevailed, the land was ever ravaged. The city 
of Raphania, in the country of Apamea, was taken by the 
king and the Count of Tripoli, after a siege of eighteen days. 
Maarah was besieged, and all CoBle-Syria, in the ordinary- 
phraseology of such histories, was entirely ravaged by the 
Turks. Of two successive expeditions against Damascus, 
the first had no other result than the abundance of the spoil ; 
in the second, undertaken on the promise that the city would 
be delivered into their hands by the chief of the Assassins, 
who possessed many castles in the vicinity of Paneas, the 
Franks, apprized of the massacre within the walls of Da- 
mascus of 6000 of their treacherous allies, abandoned the 
enterprise, accounting it happiness, which many of them did 
not enjoy, to escape with tiieir lives. Such was the last 
exploit of Baldwin the Second,! '^^'^^^ died A.D. 11-31. 

Two intestine contests for supremacy in the north of 
Syria were not, in its commencement, the presage of a 
peaceful reign to Fulco, the successor of Baldwin the Sec- 
ond. Invited by the princes of Antioch to settle their troub- 
led state, at a time when princely cities of Syria were gift- 
ed as dowries, the Prince of Tripoli refused him a passage 
through his territory ; " the soldiers of the Cross," adding a 
still deeper stain to the name, drawn up in battle array, 
fought vvith each other in a long-doubtful battle, till the for- 
ces of the count were vanquished by those of the king.ij: In 
Coele-Syria a war was carried on between rival brothers, 
Ismael and Mohammed, sons of the deceased King of Da- 
mascus. The fortresses of Ras and Leiona were taken and 

♦ De Guignes, p. 120. t Ibid., p. 122-123. X Will. Tyr., p. 854, 855. 

Q2 



18G 



SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF SYRIA 



retaken, and Baalhec was besieged. The troublous times 
gave no respite to war ; and while the King of Jerusalem 
was occupied before Joppa, Faneas (Csesarea Philippi) was 
besieged and taken by Ismael, king of Damascus. A tem- 
porary peace between these monarchs served but to change 
the seat of war. Ismael invaded the territories of the Count 
of Tripoli, defeated him in battle under the citadel of Motite 
Pellegrino, made him prisoner, and slew him.* His son 
and successor, Raimond, assailed in his devastated territory 
by a ferocious but skilful chief, Zenghi, who proved his 
title to the name of Sanguinus, given him by the Franks, 
invoked the aid of the King of Jerusalem, who hastened 
with a large army to his succour. Sanguinus, who had be- 
sieged the city of Raphania, and grievously afflicted its in- 
habitants, encountered with a large and powerful army the 
forces of the king, and, having defeated them with great 
slaughter, put the Crusaders to flight, and pressing hard on 
the vanquished monarch, besieged him and his chieftains in 
the castle of Mount Ferrard, into which they had fled as the 
nearest asylum. 

Open to devastation as the kingdom of Jerusalem then, 
was, its enemies on every side,f eager for the conquest or 
renewed possession of Syria, were not slack in their efforts 
to attain it. The inhabitants of Ascalon, which then per- 
tained to Egypt, defeated the intrepid Rainald, who bore the 
title of bishop, but who was a bold soldier in carnal warfare, 
and previously distinguished for his military exploits. J 
While the congregated forces of the Crusaders were hast- 
ening to the rescue of their king, Ismael pillaged and burn- 
ed the city of Napolous, and afterward turned his arms 
against Hamah, which Zenghi had previously taken by sur- 
prise. Having retaken it, together with the castle, he pil- 
laged Schizor (Caesarea), and returned to Damascus. Arabs, 
Turks, Greeks and Persians, Egyptians and Turkomans, 
thus successively vied with Franks in their crusading ca- 
reer. Ismael besieged and took the fortress of Schokaef; 
and this conquest having displeased the Franks, they retal- 
iated the wrong by reassembling their forces in the Haou- 
ran, which Ismael again repaid by an irruption into the 
country of Tiberias. Such was the tyranny of that lord of 
Damascus, who had repeatedly laid waste large portions of 
Syria, that, slain by his servants, his subjects exulted in his 

* Pe Guigues, torn, iii,, p. 124. t Will. Tyr., p. 8G6, 867. * Ibid., p. 868, 



DURING THE MIDDLE AGES. 



187 



death.* The regent of his kingdom offered twenty thou- 
sand pieces of gold monthly to the Franks to aid him 
against Zenghi, the founder of the dynasty of Attabeks in 
Syria (originally officers of the Seljoucides of Persia). 
Their joint armies laid siege to Paneas, which city, when 
taken, he offered to deliver to the Franks. 

Before this seemingly unhallowed league was formed by 
Crusaders and the enemies of the faith. Christians had con- 
tended with Christians for the possession both of Antioch 
and Ccesarea, and the extensive intervening regions ; and 
both these cities had been besieged, while in possession of 
the Fi'anks, by the Emperor of Constantinople, and suffered 
severely from his assaults. f Scarcely had the emperor with- 
drawn from Syria, when the king, congregating his forces, 
passed the Jordan to besiege a fortress in Gilead, which 
grievously annoyed the territories of the Franks, when a 
band of Turks, seizing the opportunity of ravaging Palestine, 
took possession of the town of Tekoa, the city of Amos and 
Habakkuk, the inhabitants of which fled at their approach. 
Robert of Burgundy, arriving in Jerusalem, having endeav- 
oured to repulse them, was defeated with great slaughter, 
and many nobles were slain. The Crusaders needed Mos- 
lem aid to attempt the siege of Paneas. 

The King of Damascus was called from the siege of 
Paneas to the defence of his own capital : the Bathenians 
or Assassins took the famous fortress of Masat, near to 
Tripoli, where they long established themselves in the ad- 
joining mountains, under their chiefs, who bore successiA^e- 
ly the long-dreaded name of the " Old Man of the Mount- 
ain." As the power of the Seljoucides became more and 
more feeble in Syria, that of the Attabeks arose. Led on b)"- 
Zenghi, they added daily to their conquests in the territo- 
ries of Damascus, and in those also of the Franks.^ Fearful 
for Antioch, and, consequently, for all Syria, the Crusaders 
in Palestine invoked the aid of all the princes of Europe, 
to save the Holy Land from the threatened domination of the 
infidels. St. Bernard, the abbot of Clairvaux, was the Pe- 
ter the Hermit of the second crusade. Encouraged by the 
pope, he did not plead with kings in vain. The King of 
France, Louis the Seventh, enlisting as a soldier in the 
holy war, along with a great number of the princes of 



* De Guignes, vol. iii., p. 124, 125. 
t De Guignes, p. 129= 



t Wm. Tyr., p. 871-883. 



188 



SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF SYEIA 



France, took the cross {se croiserent) at Vezelay. The em- 
peror, Conrad III., rivalling the king in holy zeal, and with 
him a part of Germany coping with France, resolved to un- 
dertake the deliverance of Palestine. There they first as- 
sembled at Ptolemais. This storm, says De Guignes, which 
seemed to have been raised for the destruction of the Alta- 
bcks, at that time the most powerful enemies of the Franks, 
burst impetuously on the kingdom of Damascus, the regent 
of which, seeking deliverance from their common enemy, 
courted the alliance of the Franks. But Damascus was the 
richest remaining prize in Syria ; and three kings, those of 
Jerusalem, of Germany, and of France, heading their re- 
spective hosts, sat down together in hostile array before it. 
On the north and west, contiguous orchards formed, as it 
were, a forest five miles broad, which itself was reckoned 
among the fortifications of Damascus. To feed on its abun- 
dant and delicious fruits, some of which were new to the 
taste of many German Crusaders, as well as to bereave the 
inhabitants of them, the Franks, after desperate and bloody 
conflicts, held the princely forest as their own, and drove 
those, whose enemies they were, within the walls of the 
city. In a protracted siege, the citizens began to despair 
of safety, and to meditate flight. But the hope of conquest 
became the cause of contention. The second Crusaders, 
more rash than the first, disputed for the prize before it was 
won. The purposed possession, or division of the uncon- 
quered city, broke up the unity of its besiegers. There was 
thus jealousy, if not treachery, in the camp. The mode of 
assault was changed ; the ground that had been gained was 
lost ; the King of Moussul drew near with an army for the 
defence of the city ; it was time for the chief of the Atta- 
beks to display the power which they had come to destroy ; 
and the siege that could not be renewed was raised, and the 
King of Jerusalem, as before, together with the Emperor 
of Germany and the King of France, left a country which 
they had laid waste, but a city which they could neither 
take nor destroy, and which joyfully and proudly witnessed 
the retreat of the baffled monarchs.* 

The numerous armies which, in the middle of the twelfth 
century, arrived, in Syria from Europe, might, in the estima- 
tion of a historian, " have been amply suflicient, by their 
combined energies, to overthrow the rising empire of the 

* De Guignes, p. 129-131. Will. Tyr., p. 910-913, 



DURING THE MIDDLE AGES; 



189 



Attabeks." But so greatly was their power paralyzed by 
their dissensions, that they conld not preserve from the rav- 
ages and rapacity of their enemies the territory and the 
cities of the kingdom of Jerusalem, which they had come 
to uphold and to extend. Though the Attabeks warred with 
each other, and thus added to the devastation of the land, 
the valiant and famous Noureddin was ever ready to en- 
counter and repel the Crusaders, though headed by Chris- 
tian knights and kings. He defeated them at Tagra. So 
soon as they retreated from Damascus, he besieged the cas- 
tle of Nessa, encountering which, Raimond, prince of An- 
tioch, was defeated in battle and slain ; and his head, as a 
trophy of victory, was sent to Bagdad. The triumph of 
Noureddin spread consternation among all the Franks. 
The territory of Antioch was next his prey; and he pene- 
trated even to the monastery of St. Simeon and the mount- 
ains beyond it. He took the castle of Harem, about ten 
miles from Antioch, and garrisoned it strongly. It repelled 
the attacks of the King of Jerusalem ; and he who so re- 
cently had pressed the siege of Damascus, fled for safety 
to Antioch. Noureddin wasted all its territories. He be- 
sieged and took the castle of Apamea, one of the strongest 
fortresses held- by the Franks in that vicinity when they 
pillaged the la7id of Hamah. Joscelin, count of Edessa, 
was the reputed " flail" of the Mussulmen. Noureddin 
assembled the Turkomans against him and slew him. 
Baldwin drew his forces to Antioch. The Emperor of 
Constantinople purchased from the widowed countess, at a 
large price, the country she was unable to defend ; and his 
Greek soldiers took possession of city after city that then 
remained in the hands of the Franks. But they were 
speedily driven from them all by the victorious Noureddin, 
and, together with the retreating king, made Antioch their 
refuge. Noureddin filled the whole region with his legions. 
Bitter were the lamentations when the Crusaders who had 
settled in the fertile region which skirts the base of the 
moimtains of Amanus, abandoned it to infidels, and passed 
as defeated and desolated pilgrims from the land of which 
they had taken possession, in the vain expectation that it 
was destined to be theirs and that of their seed forever. 
The patriarchate of Antioch was shorn at once of three 
archbishoprics, Edessa, Hierapolis, and Coricensis.* Nou- 

* Wm. Tyr., p. 920,921. 



190 



SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OP SYRIA 



reddin greatly and speedily extended his dominion ; and 
that prince of the Attabeks, whose power the first monarchs 
of Europe had come to destroy, was lord of Damascus in 
six years after they had besieged it in vain* (A.D. 1154). 

The taking of Damascus gave him the sovereignty of its 
kingdom. He laid siege to the strong city of Paneas, and 
surrounded it with a great number of engines. A vast mul- 
titude of Arabs was dispersed in its vicinity and occupied 
the forest. The Franks, faithless to treaties, showed them 
no mercy, and raised up against themselves the armies of 
all the Mussulmen princes. f 

While incessant war thus raged in the north, and a large 
portion of Syria was lost forever to the Crusaders, the rest 
of the land was not in a less troublous state, and they were 
doomed at the same time to encounter other enemies than 
the sovereign of the Attabeks. So insecure was the king- 
dom of Jerusalem, that a multitude of Turks surrounded that 
city, and, occupying the Mount of Olives, threatened it with 
destruction^ (A.D. 1152). Jerusalem was assailed in the 
absence of the king, and while the greater part of the sol- 
diery were assembled at Neapolis. Defenceless as it was, 
its inhabitants, prompted by fanaticism and despair, seized 
their arms, and, rushing furiously by night on their unsus- 
pecting foes, drove them from the precincts of the holy 
city. Pursuing them on the road to Jericho by a mountain- 
ous route, they slew those in the more open places with the 
sword, and precipitated others from rocks, while the slaugh- 
ter was so great that the multitude of slain impeded their 
pursuit. Vengeance overmastered avarice j and the Chris- 
tian inhabitants of Jerusalem dealt so relentlessly with their 
unresisting foes, that they slew like beasts the dismounted 
horsemen, wearied with their flight, and loaded with their 
arms. Despising the spoil, and declining their share of the 
booty, they were so fiercely bent on carnage, that they ac- 
counted it to be the greatest gain to be imbrued with the 
blood of their enemies. § Such, literally, is the archbishop's 
description. He adds, that the flying Turks were met by 
the soldiers of the cross from Neapolis, who had secured 
the ford of the Jordan, that their enemies might not escape 
them, who, fleeing thither for safety, rushed on slaughter. 
As an illustration that the hand of the Lord was upon them, 
he quotes the Scripture, That lohich the locust has left has 

* De Guignes, p. 178. t Ibid., p. 179. % Will. Tyr., p. 922. 9 Ibid., p. 923. 



bURING THE MIDDLE AGES. 



191 



the caterpillar eaten. The prophecy does, indeed, relate to 
the desolators and desolation of the land of Israel. But 
these words do not terminate the predicted judgment ; and, 
as interpreted by the prelate, the Crusaders themselves soon 
supplied another illustration : for such relentless victors, 
who returned to profane the Temple with their presence, 
and the name of God with their praise, could not always 
pass unpunished, but were rather made to know that the 
hand of the Lord was also upon them, and that they were 
not the people to keep the city of Jerusalem. Yet, as the 
wicked of the earth who made a prey of the land — accord- 
ing to the symbolical interpretation of the prelate, they 
illustrated the word of the Lord — That which the jpalmer- 
worm hath left haih the locust eaten ; and that which the locust 
hath left hath the canker-vjorm eaten : and it is farther added, 
as may farther be seen, that lohich the canker-worm hath left 
hath the caterpillar eatc7i.* The cry of destruction on de- 
struction did not cease with the Crusades. 
. Victorious in the south, though vanquished in the north 
of Syria, the Crusaders soon after pressed impetuously the 
siege of Ascalon. They went at first to ravage its environs, 
without the hope of taking or even the purpose of besieging 
it. Such was the strength of the city, that, after having 
resisted and repelled every attempt to take it for more than 
half a century when other cities and fortresses of Syria had 
yielded to the power and owned the authority of the Crusa- 
ders, the task was not only felt to be arduous, but was 
deemed almost impossible. It was not only the last fortress 
of the Egyptians, or of the Phatimate dynasty in Syria, but 
it seemed to stand alone — the impregnable Ascalon. Its 
walls sheltered the warriors who had often struck Jerusalem 
with terror, and its siege was made a trial of the strength 
of Christendom. The king, the patriarch, the archbishops 
of Tyre, C2esarea, and Nazareth, and the other lords of the 
kingdom, both princes and prelates, and the soldiers of the 
cross from all their cities, laid siege to it by land, together 
with a fleet by sea. After a continued ineffective siege for 
two months, while the approach of the great festival brought 
many Crusaders to Palestine, other work, then deemed 
strictly analogous and alike meritorious, had to be done, 
than the keeping of a holy festival, even beside the sup- 
posed sepulchre of Jesus. A royal interdict prohibited the 

* Joel, i., 4. 



192 



SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF SYRIA 



return of any Christian to Europe, and all were ordered to 
betake themselves to the siege, and every ship's station 
was appointed there. Thither flocked all the soldiers of 
the cross, and the army was augmented daily. The whole 
power of the Crusaders brought to bear upon this single 
point, is an index of the strength of Ascalon, and of the im- 
portance it maintained. Notwithstanding all that art and 
arms could do, and all the desperate daring of the boldest 
steel-clad knights of Europe, at a time when chivalry had 
reached its height ; and notwithstanding the massy rocks 
thrown by vast engines into the city, and the moles and 
towers that were raised against it, for month after month, 
during which there was scarcely a day which slaughter 
could not count its own, defiance was still shouted from the 
walls and bulwarks of Ascalon ; and they withstood every 
assault, till an elemental war, not to be resisted, brought 
them partly down. The besieged, intent at all hazards on 
the overthrow of a tower of the enemy, from which the most 
destructive projectiles were cast into the city, filled the in- 
tervening space with ignitable wood mixed with pitch, on 
which oil was poured and all the most combustible materi- 
als were heaped. But when the fire was at its height, a 
tempest, rising suddenly, drove the flames in their utmost 
fury, during the whole night, right against the contiguous 
part of the city wall, which finally fell with a thundering 
crash, that instantaneously appalled the city and roused 
the whole army.* The rule of Christian — but truly most 
unchristian — warfare was, that " in taking a city by storm, 
whatever any one first seized was his and his heirs' for- 
ever." Honour and glory, even at the greatest or brightest, 
are often but shadowy forms and empty names, and have 
nothing of the substance of the faith of a Christian. Stimu- 
lated by avarice no less than by honour, the noble Knights 
of the Temple, with their master at their head, rushed into 
the breach ; and that the richest spoil might be theirs alone, 
they suffered none to follow them. Slain to a man, they 
merited their fate. Ascalon would not yield to an uncon- 
ditional surrender. It could yet make its terms with the 
foe ; and its brave defenders, with their wives and children, 
and much of their goods, marched in safety from the city 
where the Templars found a grave.* 

The fall of Ascalon did not bring peace to Palestine. 

* Will. Tyr., p. 923, 9.30. 



DURING THE MIDDLE AGES. 



193 



A city was taken, but a treaty was broken. Baldwin had 
sworn solemnly to maintain peace with the Turks and 
Arabs, who at that time peacefully tended their flocks and 
herds in the vicinity of Paneas. Dwelling mutually in 
peace ; undisturbed by their Moslem brethren, as unitedly 
members of both the great Mohammedan families ; secured 
in their possessions by the very enemies of their faith, to 
whom they had yielded their city only on that solemn 
pledge — if there were any people in the land that could find 
jpeace, these were they. Their flocks multiplied, their 
weaUh increased. But the king had many and urgent 
creditors. His debts could not but be discharged, in hon- 
our, by whatever means ; and as one king of Jerusalem had 
paid his ransom by revenges on his enemies, another plun- 
dered the property he was sworn to protect, and slew those 
whom it was his duty to defend. The soldiers of the 
cross — if that term which they bore may be used without 
profanation — were summoned. From Jerusalem they went 
forth ; and, headed by their king, rushed suddenly on help- 
less multitudes, fearing notliing ; and all who, on the sud- 
den surprise, escaped not by flight and concealment in the 
thickets of the forest, were put to the sword, or delivered 
over to cruel servitude. Such and so unheard of was the 
abundance of the prey as to be unparalleled in European 
countries.* 

The surreptitious spoil and murderous slaughter quickly 
brought avenging woes on the king and his kingdom. All 
the Moslems, whether Turks or Arabs, were thereby united 
against him. Paneas was besieged by Noureddin with an 
ardour unremitted by night or day ; defeated in a desperate 
sally, the retreating citizens re-entered the city mingled 
with their enemies, who with fearful slaughter forced them 
into the castle. The king and his army, coming to their 
relief, and falling into a snare, were unconsciously sur- 
rounded by the forces of Noureddin, who exacted of them, 
without mercy, the innocent blood they had shed. The 
army was destroyed and dispersed ; the king escaped with 
extreme hazard of his life to the castle of Safed, and many 
noble knights were made prisoners of war. Noureddin 
again besieged Paneas and its castle, which defied his 
power till relieved again by the king, accompanied by the 

* Facta est igitur manubiarum et prffldae tanta et tarn inaudita multitudo, ut par 
ci in nostris regionibus nnn dicatur fuisse. — W. Tyr., p. 939. 

R 



194 SKETCH OP TIJE HISTORY OP SYRIA 



Prince of Antioch and the Count of Tripoli. He left it 
little else than in ruins, irom which it was speedily raised 
agairj, at a time when cities and fortresses of Israel were 
prizes contended for by princes and kings. 

Amalric, his brother, succeeded Bald;vin III., and was 
king of Jerusalem from A.D. 1162 to A.D. 1173. Though 
much remains to be told, enough may have been said to 
show, with the definitiveness of historical facts, that in the 
Middle Ages, Syria had cities that could withstand many a 
fierce and lengthened siege ; and that, while conqueror 
after conqueror strove to repair or to rebuild in order to keep 
them, desolator came after desolator to lay waste the land, 
and to take or destroy its cities. 

Amalric, in the words of De Guignes, engaged in a war 
disastrous to Noureddin, to the Franks, and the caliphs of 
Egypt. The last were entirely destroyed ; the Franks lost 
Jerusalem, and the family of Noureddin great part of their 
power ; and the famous Saladin ascended the throne of 
Egypt.* In these and other disastrous days to Syria, de- 
feat was rapidly followed by victory, and victory by defeat. 
Noureddin, while ravaging the territory of Tripoli, was 
himself defeated in the next battle, and his army almost 
annihilated, while he scarcely escaped with his life. Thirst- 
ing for vengeance, he forced Damascus, Aleppo, and other 
cities to replace the horses, the silver, the men, and all the 
materials of war which he had lost.t The veteran hero, 
with his own forces, and those which came to his aid from 
his brother the King of Moussul and other neighbouring 
princes, was soon at the head of a new and numerous armv, 
accompanied by Faccardine and his troops. He reinvested 
Harem, and strove to beat down its walls. They resisted all 
his efforts, till he was forced to raise the siege on the ap- 
proach of a vast, or, as designated, innumerable army of 
Crusaders, commanded by many princes and nobles, among 
•whom were the son of the captive Prince of Antioch, the 
C(»unt of Tripoli, the Governor of Cilicia, Hughes of Le- 
Bignan, and Joscelin, esteemed by the Moslems the bravest 
of them all, together with Toros, the king of Armenia, 
whose forces were united with theirs. The now wary 
Noureddin retired, not to fly, but to fight. Ten thousand 
Franks lay dead on the field; a greater number were takea 

* Do Guignes, torn, iii., p. 185. t Ibid., p. 183. Will. Tyr., p. 960. 



DURING THE MIDDLE AGES. 



195 



prisoners, among whom were the princes who were carried 
captive to Aleppo; and Harem^ again besieged, became the 
prey of the victor.* Hopeless of assailing successfully the 
fortifications of Antioch, his army ravaged resistlessly all 
the country to Laodicea and Souaidea. 

Noureddin, havinjr rendered his name immortal bv his 
victories against the Christians, besiesing Paneas, forced 
the King of Jerusalem to raise the siege of Palusium. Pre- 
viously rebuilt by the Franks, Par.eas was taken and forti- 
fied anew. He sent an army, under Schirkouh, a Kurd, 
the uncle of Saladin, who accompanied him, throughout the 
territories of the Franks, and took a fortress near Sidon, 
surrendered by treason, and another beyond the Jordan, 
defended in vain by the Templars. f This success in Syria 
tempted him to aspire to the conquest of Egypt, when the 
Franks lent their aid to the sinking Phatimites, threatened 
by their common foe. Saladin displayed his generalship 
and prowess in the land of the Pharaohs, which finally be- 
came his own by art no less than by arms. 

While the rising hero, who was sooti to eclipse them all, 
was paving his way to empire, the land of Syria was open 
to Noureddin, who attacked the towns of Saphia and Ari- 
ma, and took the castle of Akapli and that of Dg/aber, near 
the Euphrates. I But, more than the conquests of Noureddin, 
the establishment of Saladin in Egypt spread alarm among 
all the Franks, A council was held at Jerusalem ; and, 
for the protection or preservation of the Holy Land, the aid 
was invoked of Louis, king of France, Henry of England, 
William of Sicily, and of other princes of Europe. But 
the danger was imminent, and, ere they and their forces 
reached the shores of Syria, more than two hundred gal- 
leys, loaded with men, and arms, and military engines, sail- 
ed from Constantinople, and landed at Ascalon ; and Eu- 
rope was moved from side to side, to save Jerusalem and 
its kingdom when threatened by a Kurd. It had to be de- 
fended as it had been won — by the sword ; and the wars of 
the Crusaders seemed again to begin. § 

But the hand of the Lord fell heavier on the chief cities 
of Syria than did the human instruments of his wrath, wheth- 
er they came from Asia, Africa, or Europe. At his voice 
the earth shakes, and the strongest bulwarks fall in a mo- 



* De Guignes, torn iii., p. 189, 190, 
t Ibid., p. 200, 201. 



t Ibid., p. 191, 
if ibid,, p. 207. 



196 SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF SYRIA 



ment ; and, as if stricken by the Almighty, Syrian cities 
and fortresses became the easier prey of mortal combatants. 
In June, 1170, the greater part of the cities of Syria and 
Palestine were destroyed by an earthquake, unexampled in 
that age. Antioch, then the metropolis of many provinces, 
as formerly of many kingdoms, was strewed with the ground ; 
the walls, and the strong towers along their circuit, the 
churches and public edifices, were overthrown by so great 
a shock, that, for years thereafter, immense expenditure in 
money and indefatigable labours could scarcely restore them 
to a stale of mediocrity. According to historians the most 
guarded in their statements, the chief cities were overthrown, 
and their inhabitants buried in their ruins ; among these 
were numbered Baalhec, Hemesa, Hamah, Schaizar or Caes- 
area, and Aleppo. In Aleppo not a single dwelling was 
left ; and the inhabitants that survived encamped without 
the ruined city. Tripoli, a noble and populous city, was 
so shattered at midnight in a moment, that scarcely one of 
all its houses was a place of safety. The whole city was 
like a mound of stones, a heap covering the entombed citi- 
zens, a public sepulchre. The strongest towers of Tyre 
were thrown down. While the hand of the Lord was thus 
upon the land, the fiercest warriors were appalled ; there 
was a truce between enemies, while their cities were fall- 
ing without the hand of man. For three or four months, or 
even more, earthquakes were felt three or four times, and 
frequently oftener, either in the day or in the night. The 
stoutest heart was shaken by the slightest motion. The 
wrath of man was suspended, and the power of man ceased, 
when the armour of steel became as a winding-sheet, and 
the firmest bulwarks a grave. Towns half buried, their 
walls fallen, lay open to the incursions of enemies, whether 
Franks or Turks ; but for a time no one dared to enter. 
When the earthquakes ceased, the work of reparation be- 
gan, and among all the hostile foes in Syria, each being 
busied with his own, labours for self-defence were carried 
on by night and day.* 

Before the close of the same year famine raged in the 
land which earthquakes had shaken ; and war, another mes- 
senger of the Lord, came again within the borders, but not 
to rest till the idolatrous Christians, under whom, no less 
than under the heathen, the land and the holy city were 

* Will. Tyr., p. 985, 986. De Guignes, p. 210. 



DURING THE MIDDLE AGES. 



197 



polluted, should be driven from Jerusalem, and renounce, 
but in name, its sovereignty forever. 

Saladin and Noureddin were alike intent in carrying on, 
after a brief suspense, the war in Syria. The former laid 
siege to the fortress of Dareun near Gaza, defeated Amal- 
ric, and entered the city of Gaza; but the castle success- 
fully resisted his power. He subsequently besieged the 
towns of Karak and Shohec ; but such was their strength, 
that he spent many days before them in vain. He deso- 
lated and depopulated the region beyond Jordan. Noured- 
din laid waste the territories and the very environs of Anti- 
och and Tripoli, and attacked the towns of Saphia and 
Arima, and the castle of Area* But his death (A.D. 1174) 
wrought a great change in Syria, introduced a revolution 
in one of its kingdoms, and prepared the way for the sub- 
version of another. 

Saladin soon became Lord of Damascus as well as 
Sultan of Egypt. He took the city, but not the castle of 
Emesa ; made himself master of Hamah, which pertained 
to Faccardine, and, afler a second siege of Aleppo, which 
he disputed with the son of Noureddin, the cities of Baal- 
bec, Maara, and Kafarlah submitted to his authority. While 
he was thus occupied in conquering for himself a kingdom 
in the north of Syria, the Franks, alarmed at his conquests, 
tried every means of arresting his course. According to 
the common fate of ever-devastated Syria, when the terri- 
tories he had won were disfurnished of troops in reducing 
other lands and cities to his power, the Crusaders entered 
on new raids, and passing the Jordan, and traversing the 
forest of Paneas, they completely pillaged the territory of 
Damascus, reaching to the vicinity of the city. The in- 
habitants of the environs of Palmyra were made prisoners, 
their goods pillaged, and their lands laid waste. The 
brother of Saladin, the Governor of Damascus, was defeat- 
ed ; and before the dominion of Saladin was firmly estab- 
lished, many Mussulmen princes carried on war with each 
other ; and the whole northern region was a scene of inces- 
sant warfare, till Saladin was finally victorious over all his 
other enemies, and all the power of his two kingdoms of 
Egypt and Syria was brought to bear with exterminating 
vengeance on the Franks. t 

* De Guignes, p. 213, 214, 218. WiU. Tjt-, p. 9S6, 987, 993. 
t De GuigTies, torn, iii., p. 1, 224-237. 

R 2 



198 



SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF SYRIA 



But the kingdom of Jerusalem was not given up by the 
soldiers of Europe without dreadful and deathlike struggles. 
Ascahn and Randall, as in the first wars of the Crusades 
on the shores of Syria, were the scenes of battles in wiiich 
the swords of the Franks were fleshed in the Moslems j 
but the blades of Damascus retaliated the slaughter, and the 
arrows of the Turks and Arabs descended in showers upon 
their enemies. Defeated at first with a terrible slaughter 
of his troops, Saladin was finally victorious. A religious 
war, more desperate than at first, was carried on through- 
out Syria. A-scaloii and Lhe seashore were again a. jield of 
hlood. After the victory of the Christians they pursued 
their routed foes, and for twelve miles, says the archbishop, 
there did not cease to be a continued slaughter of the ene- 
my.* The hostile armies alternately desolated each other's 
territories. The king, Baldwin IV., after his victory, broke 
furiously into those of Saladin ; and the rich territory of 
Paneas was specially the scene of renevved desolation. 

But from north to south, throughout its whole extent, the 
kingdom of Jerusalem was the prey of the renovated armies 
of Saladin. t The battle of Tiberias, in which his forces 
were estimated at more than two hundred thousand, and in 
which twelve hundred knights of Europe fought till most of 
them were slain and they could rally no more, was the 
deathblow of the power of the Crusaders in Palestine, from 
■which neither Richard of England, though " lion-hearted," 
nor Louis of France, its sainted king, were ever able to 
recover them. The King of Jerusalem and the Grand- 
master of the Temple, together with many nobles, were his 
prisoners. Most of the cities and castles which the Chris- 
tians possessed, both in the mountains and along the coast, 
were speedily his own, viz., Tiberias, Akka, Ccesarea, 
Kaipka, Sephoiiria, Shaoikaif, Phia/a, Jaffa, Tabiin, Seid, 
Bf-yroul, DgiobatI, Laodicea, Sahioun, Derbisac, Bagras, 
Krak, Sephed, Gaza, Ram/ah, as all enumerated by Herhe- 
lot and De Guignes. Jerusalem fell, and the Franks who 
survived the siege were driven from the holy city, which 
fur nearly a century they had profaned by their cruel deeds, 
their fierce contentions, and their abominable idolatries. 
The piece of old wood which they bore with that name, 
and which was taken in the battle of Tiberias from the 
hands of a Romish bishop, was all they saw or knew of the 
cross of Christ. 



* Will. Tyr., p. 1010. 



t Ibid., p. 1015, 1017, 1025-1032, 1037-1040, 



DURING THE MIDDLE AGES. 



199 



The field of the Crusaders in Syria was narrowed to a 
space along the seacoast, where the Lord still appninted ihe 
sword. Though the statement by Gibbon that " Noiireddia 
waged a long and successful war against the Christians of 
Syria," cannot convey any adequate idea of the destruc'ion 
and desolation caused in that country by his hand, yet a few 
extracts from that historian's description of the last and lin- 
gering struggles of the Crusades on their narrowed field 
may suffice to close up this summary notice of these d<^so- 
lating wars. The small portion of the land that remained 
in the hands of the Turks still continued to bereave ihe na^ 
iions of men. 

" The pathetic narratives, and even the pictures that 
represented, in lively colours, the servitude and profanatioa 
of Jerusalem, awakened the torpid sensibility of Europe; 
the Emperor Frederic Barbarossa, and the kings of France 
and England, assumed the cross. The Italians embarked 
in the ships of Genoa, Pisa, and Venice. They were next 
speedily followed by the most eager pilgrims of France, 
Normandy, and the Western Isles. The powerful succour 
of France, Frise, and Denmark filled a hundred vessels.* 
The siege of Acre lasted near two years, and consumed, in 
a narrow space, the forces of Europe and Asia. Never 
did the flame of enthusiasm burn with fiercer and more 
destructive rage. At the sound of the holy trumpet, the 
Moslems of Egypt, Syria, Arabia, and the Oriental provin- 
ces, assembled under the servant of the Prophet ; his camp 
was pitched within a few miles of Acre ; and he laboured 
night and day for the relief of his brethren and the annoy- 
ance of the Franks. Nine battles, not unworthy of the 
name, were fought in the neighbourhood of Mount Carmel, 
with such vicissitude of fortune, that in one attack the sul- 
tan forced his way into the city ; that in one sally the 
Christians penetrated to the royal tent. The Latin camp 
was thinned by famine, the sword, and the climate ; but the 
terits of the dead were replenished with new pilgrims. 
After every resource had been tried and every hope was 
exhausted, the defenders of Acre submitted to their fate — a 
capitulation was granted. By the conquest of Acre, the 
Latin powers acquired a strong town and a convenient har- 
bour ; but the advantage was most dearly purchased. The 
minister and historian of Saladin computes that their num- 

* Gibbon's Hist., vol. xi,, p. 119, 



200 SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF SYRIA 



bers, at different periods, amounted to five or six hundred 
thousand ; that more than one hundred thousand Christians 
were slain ; that a far greater number was lost by disease 
or shipwreck ; and that a small portion of this mighty host 
would return in safety to their native countries."* " After 
the surrender of Acre and the departure of Philip (king of 
France), the King of England led the Crusaders to the re- 
covery of the seacoast, and the cities of Ccesarea and Jaffa 
were added to the fragments of the kingdom of Lusignan. 
A march of one hundred miles, fro?n Acre to Ascalon, was 
a great and perpetual battle of eleven days.^^f 

While the Franks lost all but a fragment of their king- 
dom, partially enlarged by the excommunicated Frederic, 
emperor of Germany, who entered Jerusalem in triumph, 
St. Louis of France, at the head of the sixth Crusade, nev- 
er reached the Holy Land ; the rest of Syria did not long 
repose in peace ; but the temporary calm, as the presage of 
a storm, was terminated " by the irruption of the strange 
and savage hordes of Carizmians. Flying from the arms 
of the Moguls, these shepherds of the Caspian rolled head- 
long on Syria, and the union of the Franks with the sultans 
of Aleppo, Hems, and Damascus, was insufficient to stem 
the violence of the torrent. Whatever stood against them 
was cut off by the sword or dragged into captivity ; the mil- 
itary orders were almost exterminated in a single battle ; 
and in the pillage of the city, in the profanation of the holy 
sepulchre, the Latins confess and regret the modesty and 
discipline of the Turks and Saracens. "| 

In the middle of the thirteenth century the reign of the 
Mamelukes commenced. " Antioch was finally occupied 
and ruined by Bondocdar, or Bibars, sultan of Egypt and 
Syria. The maritime towns of Laodicea^ Galata, Tripoli, 
Berytus, Sidon, Tyre, and Jaffa, and the stronger castles of 
the Hospitallers and Templars, successively fell.<^ Sultan 
Khalil marched against Acre at the head of sixty thousand 
horse and one hundred and forty thousand foot ; his train of 
artillery (if I may use the word) was numerous and weighty ; 
the separate timbers of a single engine were transported in 
one hundred wagons ; and the royal historian Abulfeda, who 
served with the troops of Hamah, was himself a spectator 
of the holy war. After a siege of thirty-three days, the 



* Gibbon, vol. xi., p. 138-141. 
t Ibid., p. 158. 



t Ibid., p. 143. 
§ Ibid., p. 166. 



DURING THE MIDDLE AGES. 



201 



double wall was forced by the Moslems ; the principal tower 
yielded to their engines ; the city was stormed ; and death 
or slavery was the lot of sixty thousand Christians. Of 
five hundred knights, only ten were left alive. By the com- 
mand of the sultan, the churches and fortijications of the 
Latin cities were demolished, and a mournful and solitary 
silence prevailed along the coast which had so long re- 
sourided with the world's debate."* 

The coast of Syria, and, lastly, that alone, did " long re- 
sound with the world's debate." There, and there only, 
did a king of England and of France, with the Emperor of 
Germany and many other princes of Europe, contend side 
by side on the same battle-field ; there, and there only, did 
princes and potentates from the farthest West meet in hos- 
tile array with those of the farthest East, and Europe, and 
Asia, and Africa contended, though unconsciously, for the 
possession of that covenanted land, which, according to the 
Word of the Lord, became the prey of strangers, the spoil 
of the wicked of the earth, though destined to be the ever- 
lasting possession of the house of Israel alone. Kings of 
Europe, with the pilgrim's staff in their hands, drew from 
it their highest titles, and the noblest of European knights 
took from it their origin and their order ; and thither, in the 
pride of their hearts, they went forth in thousands ; but their 
lances were shivered in the plains of Palestine, where their 
bodies were entombed, and where feudalism itself did fall. 

Though the last battles of the Crusades were fought along 
the seacoast where the Lord had appointed the sword,'\ and 
Europe rallied its strength in vain to penetrate into the in- 
terior of the land, no portion of it had rest ; and the sum- 
mary record, as above given, of the close of the crusading 
wars, can convey but a very partial, as well as most in- 
adequate, idea of the troubles that were then multiplied on 
Syria. 

" A more unjust and absurd constitution," says Gibbon, 
" cannot be devised, than that which condemns the natives 
of a country to perpetual servitude, under the arbitrary do- 
minion of strangers and slaves. Yet such has been the 
state of Egypt above five hundred years. The most illus- 
trious sultans of the Baharite and Borgite dynasties were 
themselves promoted from the Tartar and Circassian bands ; 
and the four-and-twenty beys, military chiefs, have eveif 

* CrifebpR, vol, xi'j p. i07j 168. t J^r,, xlvii., 6| 7» 



203 SKETCH OF THE HISTOEY OP SYRIA 



been succeeded, not by their sons, but by their servants ; 
ihey produce the great charter of their liberties, the treaty 
of Selim the First, with the republic."* Egypt, as proph- 
esied, had become a hase kingdom, the basest of the king- 
dons,] and yet, fallen as it was, it lorded over Syria. That 
land on which the curses of the covenant had fallen, had 
no charter of its liberties to produce ; and when the " king- 
dom of Jerusalem" had vanished, it became the subjugited 
vassal state, and the prey of the " basest of kingdoms." 
The word Mamelukes literally signifies slaves, and such 
they were, as the name imports. Turkish and Circassian 
slaves, raised into officers of their army by the successors 
of Saladin, who, with such power in their hands, made them- 
selves masters of Egypt, and establishing there a " military 
rej)ublic," turned Syria into a land garrisoned by foreign 
lyrants. But instead of resting under them, the land of Is- 
rael, like its expatriated people, was spoiled evermore. Bat- 
tles and sieges ceased not, though the combatants were 
changed. Turkomans and Arabs fiercely withstood the 
Mamelukes, and, when subdued, rebelled. Syria, like the 
wicked, while still given into such hands, was as the troub- 
led sea that cannot rest. The lesser waves beat incessant- 
ly against each other, till, as at other seasons, a higher wave 
for the time overwhelmed them all, and left them again 
more agitated than before. Bibars, a sultan of the Baharite 
dynasty, who occupied and ruined Antioch and many other 
cities, and scourged the Franks from the Phoenician coast, 
had also to encounter mightier foes. Holagou, emperor of 
the Moguls, before the Franks were driven out of it, enter- 
ed Syria witli four hundred thousand men. The army of 
the Moslems was defeated with great slaughter, and pursu- 
ed to the gates of Aleppo. That city was besieged, and 
when the machines of ihe enemy were brought to bear upon 
the weakest part of the wall, it fell ; and the city, when ta- 
ken, was given up to pillage for six days. Partly through 
treachery and force, Damascus was taken, and its castle, 
together with that of Baalbec, was destroyed. Maarah, 
Hama, Emesa, Harem, &c., were besieged and ravaged, 
'i'he fortifications of Aleppo and other cities were razed. 
Adgeloun was besieged, taken, and ruined. The ravages 
of the Moguls in Syria, on their first invasion under Hola- 
gou (A.D. 1259, 1260), extended from the Eu})hrates to 

* Gibbon, vol. xi., p. 164, f Ezek., xxix., 14, 15. 



DUPJNG THE MIDDLE AGES. 



203 



Tiberias, where their army was entirely vanquished, and 
their general slain. Driven from Syria, they speedily re- 
turned, retook Aleppo, massacred the inhabitants of Carne- 
bia, besieged Emesa and Apamea, and laid waste their ter- 
ritories.* 

Abaka-il-Khan, the son and successor of Holagou, sent 
ambassadors, and entered into treaty with the pope and all 
the Christian princes, and, striving to drive the Mamelukes 
from Syria, subjected it to redoubled desolation. Having 
ravaged the country from Aleppo to Emesa, a great battle, 
not without its parallel in Syria from the conjoined victory 
and defeat of the respective urnted armies, was fought in the 
great, and, as then it was, beautiful plain of Emesa. Mo- 
guls, Georgians, Armenians, and Persians were ranged on 
the one side ; Egyptians, Arabs, Turkomans, Sic, on the 
other. The Mussulmen fled before the Moguls, who believ- 
ed that the victory was theirs, and pursued their vanquished 
foes amid a terrible carnage. But their ally, the King of 
Armenia, who led on the Christians, met with no less terri- 
ble discomfiture, and, fleeing from th.> land whose invaders 
were devoted to destruction, lost all his officers, and almost 
all his army.f 

But the time had come when neither aid from Europe, 
nor the alliance of the Moguls, could sustain or restore the 
fallen kingdom of Jerusalem. The successor of Abaka, 
adopting the Mohammedan faith, took the name of Ahmed, 
and became the persecutor of the Christians and the friend 
of the Moslems. The greater part of the churches were de- 
stroyed, and the Christians exiled (A.D. 1283).| 

Before the close of the same century, " the wars of Syria" 
began anew between the Khan of the Moguls and the Sul- 
tan of Egypt. The whole country was alternately the prey, 
from end to end, of the one and of the other: the JMoguls at 
one time, when victorious, ravaging the environs of Gaza and 
the borders of Egypt, and the Mamelukes, or Syrians, at 
another, recovering their lost dominion in the farthest ex- 
tremities of Syria. Each sought the destruction of the oth- 
er. The Egyptians, when defeated, retired beyond the des- 
ert, the Moguls beyond the Euphrates, on the north of Syr- 
ia, alike to recruit their strength and to renew the war. The 
fated Syria, from one extremity to the other, lay thus be- 



* De Guignes, torn, iii., p. 250-257, 
t Ibid., p. 2,63. 



t Ibid., p. 258-262, 



204 



SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF SYRIA 



tween them, and was the prize for which, in their appointed 
times, they fought. Though the Sultan of Egypt counted it 
his own, and the Mussulmen deemed it their own land, vot 
when Gazan, the Tartar emperor, crossed the Euphrates, 
and spread over the regions of Sarrain, Maarah, and Anti- 
och, and threatened the entire destruction of the Mohamme- 
dans, they shut up their cattle and grain in their fortresses, 
and set tire to all that they could not save. The Mogul ar- 
my was so numerous that it occupied the space of three days 
journeying in length from Bacca to Beer; but such, then, 
were the contests for Syria and within it, that the battles be- 
tween such numerous hosts were so long contested and 
fierce, that victory long hung in the balance ; and when, at 
last, the Moguls, after immense slaughter, gave way, the 
Mussulmen retired to Hamah. To its environs the Moguls 
speedily returned, and advanced to Emesa, which in such 
desperate warfare they took, after every Mussulman had 
been put to the sword. Another battle, contested for two 
days, terminated in the overthrow of the Moguls, who had 
power to devour and to despoil, but not to retain possession 
of Syria, which the Mamelukes enslaved.* 

No less than in other ages, Syria, under the Mamelukes, 
was given unto strangers for a prey^ and to the wicked of the 
earth for a spoil. All the different corps of their army amount- 
ed to nearly three hundred thousand men. Each emir or chief 
had a portion of land assigned him; the peasantry furnish- 
ed provisions, and bread was distributed among the soldiers. f 
Insurrectionary movements repeatedly indicated the severi- 
ty of the bondage ; but the descendants of ancient conquer- 
ors had in their turn to experience that peace was not the 
portion of those who dwelt in a land on which the curses 
of the covenant had fallen. Earthquakes, levelling the walls 
of many cities, had paved the way for Mameluke domination 
in Syria ; and when their dominion was drawing to a close, 
their power was broken by the renowned Tamerlane, anci 
the conquests of a Tartar prepared the way for the subjec-. 
tion of Syria to the Ottoman yoke. 

*' The Syrian emirs wevQ assembled at Aleppo to repel 
the invasion ; they confided iq the fame and discipline of the 
Mamelukes, in the temper of their swords and lances of the 
purest steel of Damascus, in the strength of their walled ciu 

. 1 ^wipfs^ tQiia, jji,, p, ?7i, t ^^i<i.) tom, iv., p. 



DURING THE MIDDLE AGES. 



205 



ies, and in the populousness of sixty thousand villages ; and, 
instead of sustaining a siege, they threw open their gates, 
and arrayed their forces in tlie plain. But these forces 
were not cemented by virtue and union, and some powerful 
emirs had been seduced to desert or betray their more loyal 
companions. Timour's front was covered with a line of In- 
dian elephants, whose turrets were filled with archers and 
Greek fire. The rapid evolutions of his cavalry completed 
the dismay and disorder ; the Syrian crowds fell back on 
each other: many thousands were stifled or slaughtered in 
the entrance of the great street ; the Moguls entered with 
the fugitives, and, after a short defence, the citadel — the 
impregnable citadel of Aleppo — was surrendered by coward- 
ice or treachery. The streets of Aleppo streamed with 
blood, and re-echoed with the cries of mothers and children, 
with the shrieks of violated virgins. The rich plunder that 
was abandoned to his soldiers might stimulate their avarice, 
but their cruelty was enforced by the peremptory command 
of producing an adequate number of heads, which, according 
to his custom, were curiously piled up in columns and pyr- 
amids. The Moguls celebrated the feast of the victory, while 
the surviving Moslems passed the night in tears and in 
chains. I shall not dwell on the march of the destroyer 
from Aleppo to Damascus, where he was rudely encounter- 
ed, and almost overthrown, by the armies of Egypt. Aban- 
doned by their prince, the inhabitants of Damascus still de- 
fended their walls, and Timour consented to raise the siege 
if they would adorn his retreat with a gift or ransom, each 
article of nine pieces. But no sooner had he introduced 
himself into the city, under colour of a truce, than he per- 
fidiously violated the treaty, imposed a contribution of ten 
millions of gold, and animated his troops to chastise the pos- 
terity ot those Syrians who had executed, or approved the 
murder of the grandson of Mohammed. A family which had 
given honourable burial to the head of Hosein, and a colony 
of artificers whom he sent to labour at Samarcand, were alone 
rescued in the general massacre ; and, after a period of sev- 
en centuries, Damascus was reduced to ashes, because a 
Tartar was moved by religious zeal to avenge the blood of 
an Arab. Timour, in his return to the Euphrates, delivered 
Aleppo to the flames.* In the pillage gf Syria, the Moguls 
bad acquired immense riches."! 

* Gibbon, vol. xii., p. 23, 24. t Ibi^., p. 2$, 



205 



SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF SYRIAc 



When the power of the Mamelukes was thus broken, and 
the Mo<£uls had vanished with their prey, the time seemed 
to be come when Syria could free itself from a foreign yoke ; 
and many of its emirs, stimulated by ambition or revenge, 
strove to cast off the sovereignty of the Sultan of Egypt. 
One of these, Dgiakam, declaring for the rebels, made him- 
self master of Tripoli, Hamah, and Aleppo. Another, Sheik 
Mahmoud, sent an army to take Saphet by surprise ; but, 
failing in the assault, he prepared many engines to throw 
(burning) naphtha and stones into the city, and (A.D. 141)5) 
laid siege to it with a numerous army in vain.* Syria be- 
came the scene of successive civil wars, and Egypt vvas 
invaded by the "rebels." But the sultan, with an unexam- 
pled intre[)idity, pursued them, till, driven from city to city, 
Sheik Mahmoud was besieoed in the castle of Sarkud be- 
yond Bosra. Thither machines were transported from So- 
hai.ba, Sapket, and Damascus, which were raised against the 
castle, and from which stones of sixty pounds' weight were 
thrown. When such means were ineffectual, another ma- 
chine of still larger dimensions and power, from which pro- 
jectiles of eighty-six pounds were cast, was carried from 
Damascus in separate parts, the materials of which formed 
the burden of two hundred camels. The castle was finally 
delivered up, and the rebel chief resumed the government of 
Tripoli (A.D. 1409). t New revolts succeeded, and new 
sieges took place. The governors of Gaza and Damascus 
raised the standard of rebellion, and were joined by those of 
Hamah, Ah'ppo, Roum, Tripoli, and many others (A.D. 
14 1 5). J When the Crusaders had long ceased to descend 
in armed myriads on its shores, Syria vvas divided against it- 
self, and bv a twofold intestine war strove to cast off the tyr- 
antiy of Circassian slaves, the lords of Egypt. Again and 
again the sultan brought his armies to quell the insurrection- 
ary commotions and to perpetuate the bondage, and the rav- 
ages of war were alternated in Egypt and Syria till the sec- 
ond dynasty of the Mamelukes was brought to an end by a 
foreign power; for, ere a third part of the fifteenth century 
had elapsed, the Ottomans, more fell destroyers by peace 
than others by war, overthrew their empire, and took pos- 
session of Syria, as if in order to accomplish what such 
niuliitudinous hosts and incessant wars could not effect, and 



* De Guides' Hist., torn, v., p. 294. 
X Ibid., p. 311. 



t Ibid., p. 303, 304. 



STATE OF SYRIA IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 207 

to reduce it, in the progress of ages of decay, to the last de- 
gree of predicted desolation which the land was to reach, till 
its expatriated, but still covenanted, children should return. 



CHAPTER V. 

STATE OF SYRIA IN THE MIDDLE AGES, ETC. 

The Middle Ages may be said to present to view the 
middle stage in the progress of the general desolation and 
depopulation of Syria. Of cities that anciently exulted in 
their opulence and splendour, many had passed into oblivion. 
Je-;rusalem, which fell an easy prey to 20,000 ('rusaders, 
was not like that Jerusalem which loiior withstood the 
miglit of imperial Rome, and in whose fall a million of 
human victims perished. When restored after many cen- 
turies to be the metropolis of a kingdom, it was not like the 
city in which Solomon reigned : and scarcely a shadow 
of his glory rested on the heaven-stricken hills of Judah, 
when, alter the close of many crusading wars, an Emperor 
of Germany, who saw little more of the land, could make 
a mockery of the kingdom of Jerusalem compared to that of 
Naples. Antioch could not boast of nine hundred thousand 
inhabitants, when it could yield up as prisoners hut a ninth 
part of the number, at a time when the Crusaders finally 
lost the first city of Syria they had taken. Nor could Kin- 
nesrin, at that time as down to the days of the Saracens, 
pay, besides gold, a redeeming tribute of figs and other 
fruits, in loads told by the thousand. The cities and towns 
of Ephraim and Judah, with villages attached to each, were 
not then numbered by hundreds, as in the days of Joshu i ; 
and few of the sixty cities of the kingdom of Bashan re- 
mained in their populousness and strenijth, to check the 
ravages and impede the march of a crusading army. Marks 
of decay were manifest throughout the land ; and magniti. 
cent remains, now greatly shrunk in their dimensions, be- 
spoke magnificent cities then no more. Ammon was a 
heap, the ancient capital of Moab a villacje. Capernaum, 
Chorazin, Bethsaida, were np longer exalted unto heaven, 



208 STATE OF SYEIA IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 



but lay low at the word of the Lord, whose voice in the 
days of their visitation they would not hear. The cities of 
Galilee, through all of which Jesus had preached, were not 
what they had been in the time of Josephus, nor could the 
population cope with what in had been, or the greatest of 
their villages, as the least had done, count 15,000 men. 
Of the cities that fell in the days of Yespasian, or were 
given to the flames and devoted to utter destruction in those 
of Adrian, few had risen. When invaded by the Crusaders, 
many parts of Syria bore witness of judgments : and far 
less, it was not, in the midst of these desolating wars or 
after they had ceased, what it had been in the days of its 
prosperity and excellence, when millions of Israelites, 
blessed of the Lord, lacked not anything in the land, or 
even when subjugated by a foreign foe it was ranked by 
Pliny as " formerly the greatest of countries."* 

But, fallen as it was, after a renewal of " the slow rava- 
ges of despotism," and after spoiler had contended with 
spoiler to seize and to secure it for a prey, and strangers had 
again and again overthrown and devoured it, Syria could 
still attract and reward new spoliators ; and it strove, age 
after age, in defiance of them all, to maintain its natural and 
rightful designation of a goodly land ; and, in fact, held out 
many a prize for which nations contended, and which, when 
seized, became anew a bone of contention between princes, 
and prelates, and kings. Such was the attractiveness of 
one of the first cities taken by the Crusaders, that the walls 
had to be broken down that it might not keep them back 
from the deliverance of Jerusalem : and however much the 
lips of talkers in after ages could blaspheme the land, and 
the pens of scoffers write down as contemptible villages 
most of the cities that ever had existed there, yet neither 
the cities nor the land were despised or defamed, when the 
most powerful monarchs of Europe, with their hundreds of 
knights and thousands of warriors, toiled in vain month after 
month before them ; and when, in their predatory raids, 
they carried away from helpless peasantry such an abun- 
dance of spoil, that the amount could not be told in their 
own land, as capable of ever being realized in them by any 
spoliators. 

The fact, though hitherto little regarded, that there are 
direct and conclusive records of the statistical or geograph* 

* Sjrria quondam terrarum maxima —V^mY, Nat, Hist,j lib. v., |3; 



STATE OF SYRIA IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 209 



ical state of Syria in the Middle Ages, more ample and de- 
tailed than the most ancient geographers or historians sup- 
ply, is well worthy of a passing illustration, as it may serve 
to show how great are the blessings guarantied by covenant 
to Israel, in respect to the same territorial possessions. 
Long after the kingdom had been established with David 
and Solomon, whose sovereignty was owned from the Med- 
iterranean to the Euphrates, and from the Red Sea to the 
entering in of Hamath, the Prophet Ezekiel, looking to the 
time of the restoration of the kingdom to Israel, records, 
among precious promises, this word of the Lord : " / will 
settle you after your old estates, and will do better unto you 
than at your begi lining. And as such is the promise, so 
assuredly much more, when the mountains of Israel shall 
shoot forth their branches and yield their fruit to his people 
Israel., shall the Lord do far better unto them than he did to 
those fanatical unbelievers and apostate idolaters who defiled 
the land by their iniquities, and rent it asunder by their mur- 
derous wars ; to whom he gave his pleasant land for a prey 
and for a spoil ; and as to whom, though his sentence against 
their evil works was not executed speedily, yet his judg- 
ments did not always tarry. 

The state of Syria in the Middle Ages cannot, wherever 
there is any faith in the promises of God, be taken as any 
adequate measure of the high estate which, as the heritage 
of Jacob, it is destined to reach. But so greatly has the 
land of Israel become an infamy among the people, that 
there is reason to fear that the estimate in the minds of 
many, if ever formed at all, of the excellence of Israel's ev- 
erlasting inheritance, would be exceeded, on comparison, 
by what the cities and the land actually were when they 
formed the alternate prey and temporary possession of Sar- 
acens, Turks, Carmathians, Phatimites, Franks, Assassins, 
Kurds, and Tartars. Such false impressions, in the mind 
of any reader, may be dissipated by a glance at the cities 
of Syria as they existed then. To know something of its 
goodliness, we may look on its aspect before the pleasant 
land finally became like a desolate wilderness. And if it 
retained any long-lingering glory in such troublous times 
and in the hands of such iniquitous strangers, what may it 
not become when the covenant with Abraham shall be re- 
alized, and the land which the Lord espied for Israel, as the 

* Ezek., ixxvi., 11. 



210 STATE OF SYRIA IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 

glory of all lands, shall in peaceful possession be their own 
forever ? 

The geography of El-Edrisi and that of Abulfeda contain 
brief descriptions of the most important ciiit^s, towns, aiid 
fortresses of Palestine, as they existed at the middle of the 
twelfth and the beginning of the fourtee nth century. In the 
intervening period of a hundred and Hfty years, immediate- 
ly subsequent respectively to the former date and prior to 
the latter, the travels of Benjamin of Tudela and of Broc- 
card supply corresponding testimony. The writings of trav- 
ellers of later date are full of undoubted facts, which amply 
show how slowly Syria sank into that low state of general 
desolation to which it has now been reduced. It might be 
said of many places throughout the land, that were they 
now, as speedily they might be, only what they were not 
many ages past, then the wilderness would be a fruitful 
field, and the desert would rejoice and blossom like the 
rose ; and were the cities to be what they were even then, 
ihey would speedily rank among the fairest and richest in 
the world. 

Damascus, before its destruction by Tamerlane, was one 
of the noblest cities in the world. It was designated in the 
word of God, pointing even to the latter times, iJie city of 
praise, the cily of my joy* As described by Edrisi and 
Abulfeda, its situation is admirable, its climate healthy and 
temperate, the soil rich, its waters abundant, the productions 
varied, the riches immense, the troops numerous, the edifi- 
ces superb. The villages in its environs were like towns. 
Than the valley of El Gutha. in which it lay, a fairer was 
nowhere to be found. It was reckoned the first of the four 
Tempes, which surpassed in pleasantness all other places 
on earth, and extended two days' journey in length and one 
in breadth. In the city stood a temple of unequalled splen- 
dour, the marble of which occupied twelve thousand oper- 
atives, and the expenditure of which was estimated at four 
hundred chests (cistae) of gold, each of which contained 
fourteen hundred ^o/c^ solidi. Before the west gate of Da- 
mascus lay the valley of violets, twelve miles long and four 
broad, covered, as it were, with the tapestry of richly-varie- 
gated fruits, at once beautiful to the eye and delicious to the 
taste. Continuous gardens extended from Damascus to Zeb- 
deui, distant eighteen miles. In the twelfth century Damas- 

* Jer,, xlis.j 25, 



STATE OF SYRIA IN THE MIDDLE AGES, 211 



cus ranked only as one of the most noble of the cities of 
Syria, even when it shone in its utmost magnificence ; but, 
when other cities were brought down from their rivalry, it 
became the noblest of them all.* 

Anliocli, long so famous in the history of Syria, and the 
seat of many kings, was surrounded by walls of surprising 
solidity, said to be twelve miles in circuit. Its markets 
were most flourishing, its edifices magnificent, its commerce 
prosperous, its resources and productions renowned. In 
the thirteenth century it was excelled only by Damascus, 
as one of the most delightful cities of Syria, with villas, and 
villages, and the richest territories.! Souaidie vvas the 
ouier port of its commerce, in the vicinity of which was the 
fortified and populous town of Herbade.\ 

Laiikia, or Laodicea, situated on the coast, on the oppo- 
site side of the Orontes, was a populous and flourishing city, 
with resources of every kind, and an elegant and spacious 
harbour, of admirable construction* A large and beautiful 
monastery adorned the city. Its vicinity was remarkable 
for the vast productiveness of its soil and the density of its 
population.^ 

Hamath, of which, says Abulfeda, mention is made in the 
Hebrew Scriptures, was then one of the most pleasant cit- 
ies of Syria. It strong and lofty citadel was beautifully 
constructed.il Together with Schai.zar, it was famous for 
the great number of machines which raised the water from 
the river into a canal, from whence it flowed through con- 
duits into the houses and gardens. The chief temple was 
converted into a mosque. Sckaizar was also fortified by a 
strong citadel, and abounded in gardens and fruit-trees, es- 
pecially pomegranates. IT 

Hems (Emesa), a strong city, situated in an extremely 
fertile and populous plain, abounded with merchandise of 
every kind. Its bazars were plentifully stored, and much 
frequented from all quarters of the world. Its inhabitants, 
leading a luxurious life, possessed abundance of all things.** 
But its extensive vineyards, which Saracens had spared, 
were repeatedly ravaged by Crusaders, and almost destroy- 

* Rfcueil de la Sori^te de G6ograph., Paris, 1S36, lorn, v., p 349-353. G6og. 
d'Edrisi. Abalfeda, Tabula SyrijE, )). JOO-103. Ibid., Iba 01 Wardi, p. 171-174. 
t Edrisi, ibid., ti)m. vi., p. 131. Abulfeda, Tab. Syriae, p. 115, 116. 
t Edrisi, ibid., torn, vi., p. 131, 132. 
() Abulfeda, p. 112, 1]3. Edrisi, ibid , torn, vi., p. 131. 

tl Abulfeda, p. 108, 109. % Ibid., Tab. Syr., p. 110. 

** Edrisi, ibid., torn, v,, p, 357, 358, Abulfeda, Tab. Syr., p. 104. 



212 STATE OF SYRIA IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 



ed. Till after the middle of the seventeenth century Hems 
was surrounded by a wall, which was fortified by twenty-six 
towers. Its chief mosque, once a Christian church, sup- 
ported by thirty-four marble columns, chiefly variegated, 
was seventy paces long and eighteen broad. Of the other 
churches, one, possessed by the Saracens, was " dedicated 
to our Lady," another, also supported by marble pillars, to 
the Forty Martyrs. The castle, partly ruined (having, like 
that of Hamath, withstood hard and long sieges), was, by 
the command of the Grand Signior, neither to be repaired 
nor inhabited. The ditch around the city wall was filled 
with ruins, and, in the progress of desolation, not one half 
of the rich valley between Hems and Hamath was culti- 
vated.* 

Baalhec was a beautiful city, solidly built, intersected by 
a stream, from which the water passed by conduits into the 
houses. It was enriched with the choicest luxuries ; the 
soil was very fruitful ; the corn extremely cheap. The 
territory of Baalbec produced all the necessaries, and most 
of the luxuries of life ; and the vines and other fruit-trees 
yielded a more abundant produce than the inhabitants could 
consume. f 

Aleppo, which had become the capital of Kinnesrin, was 
a large and populous city down to a recent period. The 
number of inhabitants at Aleppo has been computed, says 
Dr. Russel, at three hundred thousand ; but it is now con- 
jectured (towards the close of last century), with more 
probability, that they do not exceed two hundred and thirty- 
five thousand. J It was surrounded by very high walls, 
constructed of hewn stone, in large, square masses, with 
towers at intervals of sixty paces. A strong citadel in the 
midst of the city had a high tower, which was conspicuous 
at the distance of ten miles. The suburbs were adorned 
with magnificent buildings as well as the city, the m.ost ele- 
gant of which were hippodromes for equestrian sports. The 
most spacious churches were converted into mosques, of 
one of which the tower was not excelled in height by any 
in Syria. To the wonder of many, the walls of the church 
of St. John, carved with pictures of the saints, remained 
untouched ; but they were shut up from view, as an abom- 

* Thevenot's Travels (A.D. 1655), p. 223, 224. 

t Abulfeda, p. 103. Ibn 01 Wardi, p. 187. Edrisi, ibid., torn, v., p. 353, 354. 
j Russel's Aleppo, p. 97, 98. 



STATE OF SYRIA IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 213 



ination to the Mohammedans. The city contained many- 
grand kiians or caravanseras, which were stored with all 
varieties of the richest merchandise, and frequented from 
every quarter.* 

Aintab was a beautiful and large city, with a citadel cut 
out of the live rock, and very strongly fortified, abounding 
in well-watered gardens, famous for its markets, and much 
frequented by merchants and travellers.! 

Sarmin was the capital of an extensive prefecture, Vv^hich 
contained many villages. It rejoiced in the abundance of 
its olives and other trees, and in a fruitful soil, and was 
adorned with a forum and large mosque. In its vicinity 
were forests of pistachio-trees. ;{: 

Maarali was a strongly-fortified city, and, like many 
others, the see of a bishop. In the thirteenth century it 
was a populous city, abounding in all sorts of luxuries ; and 
though it had sunk into a small village in the seventeenth 
century, its khan was so spacious as to lodge with ease 
eight hundred men and their horses. § 

Nearly midway between Antioch and Apamea stood the 
fortresses of Asshoghar and Bacas, on the River Orontes, 
which abounded in fruitful gardens. To these forts a large 
mosque was attached, and a market-place in its vicinity 
was crowded weekly by multitudes. || 

Tripoli was a large city, well fortified, and surrounded 
by pleasant villages and fauxbourgs, the lands around plant- 
ed with olives, vines, and other fruit-trees, and sugar-canes. 
It was one of the entrepdts of Syria, full of all manner 
of merchandise, or articles of commerce. Several forts 
were dependances of Tripoli, of which four are mentioned 
by Edrisi. The most renowned of its villages were Chaki- 
kie, Zenbourie, Raabie, Harth, and Amioun, which, as well 
as the rest, possessed abundantly plantations of olives and 
other fruits. Three forts, at short distances, lay between 
Tripoli and Area, a populous city, with a lofty citadel and 
a large faubourg. The river that flowed beside the city wa- 
tered numerous vineyards and plantations of sugar-cane.^ 

Sidon was a large and well-built city. Its markets were 
furnished with all varieties of merchandise, its gardens co- 
piously irrigated and full of fruits. It had large depend- 

* Edrisi, ibid., torn, vi., p. 136. Tab. Syriae. Ibn 01 Ward i, p. 188-190. Coto- 
vici Itiner., p. 107-109. Russel's Aleppo. t Abulfeda, Tab. Syr., p. 121, 122. 

* Ibid., p. 115. Rauwolflf's Travels, p. 59. t) Abulfeda, p. Ill, 112. Thevenot. 
II Ibid., p. 124. Edrisi, ibid., torn, v., p 356, 357, 



214 STATE OF SYRIA IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 



ances, which were divided into four districts, whicn ex- 
tended to Lehanon ; that of Har, renowned for its fertility ; 
of Cherbe, alike delicious ; of Kafr-Keilan and of El-Raini, 
named from a stream that flowed down from the mountains 
and rushed to the sea. These united districts comprised 
nearly six hundred villages.* And thus, even in the twelfth 
century, shrunk as Sidon the great then was, and circum- 
scribed its territory, there was still a rich meaning in the 
words of the covenant, devoting what they never yet have 
inherited, all the Sidonians, and the territory they possess- 
ed, to the inheritance of Israel. 

Beiroul was surrounded by a strong wall. From the iron 
mines in the adjoining mountain, metal susceptible of ex- 
cellent temper was extracted, and sold extensively through- 
out all Svria. 

Askehm was a fine city, surrounded by a double wall, 
abounditig in gardens and fruits, and rich in olives, vines, 
nuts, and pomegranates. All commodities were extremely 
cheap, and^the soil most fruitful.! Aske/on, Arsouf, and 
Jaffa, maritime cities of Palestine, greatly resembled each 
other in extent, in charms, and the stale of their inhabi- 
tants — all beautiful cities, well fortified and populous, and 
surrounded by quantities of vines and olives. Jaffa, pariic- 
"ularly, was the port of Jerusalem. J To the south of Jeru- 
salem were two beautiful districts, viz., Hanial, of which 
the capital was Darah, and Cherat,o^ which the capital was 
Adrah. These regions were extremely fertile, producing 
figs, almonds, and pomegranates in abundance. § El-Ari.sh 
had two mosques of remarkable construction. Its sandy 
territory produced dates and various other fruits.]] 

The town of Aaghin (Ajalon), east of the Jordan, was 
strongly fortified by its famous castle, built or rebuilt in the 
fourteenth century. It rejoiced in its streams, and gardens, 
and fruits, and most fertile soil.^ 

As- Salt was a strong town, fortified by a citadel, and wa- 
tered by a large fountain : it rejoiced in its numerous gar- 
dens. From the fame of their excellence, says the Prince 
of Harnath, its pomegranates were exported to all quarters 
of the world.** 

Bozra, the capital of the Haouran, had a castle of the 

* Edrisi, torn, v., p. 354, 355. t Tabula Syriae, Ibn 01 Wardi, p. 179. 

t \\n 1., p. 348. <) Edrisi, ibid., torn, v., p. 340, 341. 

D ibid., p. 340. lr Abulfeda, Tab. Syr., p. 13. ** Ibid., p. 92. 



* 



STATE OF SYRIA IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 



215 



firmest construction. Schnrchod, a snnall town, was forti- 
fied by an excellent citadel, and encompassed by numerous 
vineyards.* A royal highwaj' extended eastward from it 
to Persia, the distance to Bagdad, according to the then ex- 
isting itineraries, being ten days' journey. Fortified with 
mounds^ it bore the name of Ar Rasz/fA 

Little has been told of the number and maonificence of 
the cities of Syria, that have yet to arise from their ruins 
in greater glory than ever. Abulfeda, however briefly, gives 
in his geography a short separate description of njore than 
a hundred cities, towns, and citadels, as the most distin- 
guished or celebrated in Syria. Though his work is chiefly 
occupied in marking their positions, the latitude and longi- 
tude of upward of sixty of them being given in a table, yet 
most of them, as well as those above noted, are described 
as rejoicing in fountains or streams, and in gardens or fruits. 
Syria even then, in the fourteenth century, had not altogeth- 
er lost the character which Pliny gave it, as a country 
abounding exceedingly in gardens. Tiberias and Jericho, 
together with the intervening region, the valley of the Jor- 
dan, and El-Arish on the borders of the desert, could still 
show that, though comparatively few, there still were palms 
to vindicate the fame which they gave to Judea in the days 
of that eminent naturalist : the palm and the balsam, which 
an Italian climate could not rear, retained their station in 
Judea : and trees which he noted as peculiar to Judea, and 
which, transported from thence, were indigenous in Italy, 
continued, though often degenerating into wildness, in their 
native clime. Of these he specifies the pistachio nut, vari- 
ous kinds of plants, the juniper, the cedar, and the terebinth 
tree,.;]: The vegetables, or pot-herbs of Syria, which, ac- 
cording to his testimony, were varied and abundant, could 
still astonish, by their variety, their richness, size, and num- 
ber, the European traveller in ages far less remote from our 
owm. 

Two or three centuries ago, many regions of Syria, un- 
blasted by permanent desolation, though often ravaged by 
successive desolators, continued long to bear witness, by 
their vast profusion, to the prodigality of the gifts of Nature ; 
and from Amanus on the north of Syria, and Beerith on 
the Euphrates, to the borders of Egypt, presented scenes 



* Abulfeda, Tah Svr., p. 99, 105, 106. 

* Villi., Nat. Uist., lib. xiii., c. 10, 11, 12. 



t Ibid., p. 106. 



Sl6 STATE OF SYRIA IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 



of luxurious loveliness without a parallel in less favoured 
climes. 

In ascending Beilan, the ancient Amanus, the traveller, 
in the sixteenth century, passed through thick and shady 
woods, in which planes, larches, firs, beech, oaks, cedars, 
laurels, and myrtles were intermingled. From the summit 
of the mountain, covered with cedars, junipers, and andrach- 
nes, a magnificent and extensive view spread forth before 
him on every side. Looking to the south — as Israel, when 
her name shall be Beulah, married, and when she shall no 
longer be termed Forsaken, shall yet look from the top of 
Amanus — he beheld the widespread Lake of Antioch mir- 
rored at his feet, a most extensive valley, the city of Anti- 
och itself, with the hills, and all the mountains around it ; 
while to the west, the more lowly hills, and narrower, but 
most fertile valleys, and thick woods, filled up all the inter- 
vening space, till the view was bounded by the Mediterra- 
nean Sea.* 

" At Aleppo,'^ says Dr. Rauwolff, " there are abundance of 
delicate orchards, that are filled with oranges, citrons, lem- 
ons, Adam's apples, Sebesten peaches, morellos, and pome- 
granates, Slc. The valley is full of olive-trees, so that 
several thousand hundred-weight of oil are made yearly. 
There is also a great quantity of tame and wild almond 
trees, of figs, of quince and white mulberry trees, very high 
and large. Pistachio-trees are very common in the fields, 
bearing nuts, like grapes, in clusters together."! " Garden- 
plants and kitchen-herbs, without as within the gardens, 
were in vast variety and abundance, including watermelons, 
very large and delicious, pumpions, citrals, &c., and many 
other rich but strange plants, unknown to the European 
traveller. Barley, wheat, and various kinds of pulse were 
abundant, their harvest commonly commencing in April or 
May. ""J " In the great plain near Tripoli," says the same 
observant traveller, " you see abundance of vineyards, and 
very fine gardens, enclosed in hedges, chiefly consisting of 
rhamus, alicorus, oxyacantha, phillyria, lycium, bataustinum, 
rubus, and little palm-trees, that are but low, and so sprout 
and spread themselves, and containing all sorts of salads 
and kitchen-herbs, besides fruits, as watermelons, melons, 
gourds, citrals, melongena, sesamum, and the cola cassia, 



* Itinerarium Cotovici, p. 501. 

t Rauwolff's Trav., A.D. 1573, p. 64, 102, &c. 



t Ibid., p. 65, 67. 



STATE OF SYRIA IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 217 



which is very common. Without the gardens, also, are 
many date atiJ mulberry trees, pomegranate and siliqun, ol- 
ive and almond trees, Adam's apples, &c. ; while citrons, 
lemons, and oranges are in so great plenty, that they are ns 
little regarded as pears or oats in Holland. Between these 
gardens run several roads and pleasant walks, which afford 
many shady places in summer ; and if, passing through, you 
have a mind to some of the fruits, you may either gather 
some that are fallen down, or else pull them from the near- 
est trees without dantjer, and take them home with vou."* 
In the adjacent grounds are great quantities of sug;»r-canes, 
from which m.uch sugar is made yearly. Sycamore trees, 
bearing fruit not unlike the fig, grow in all fields and grounds, 
yielding fruit three or four times yearly, which is found upon 
the trees all the year long. How abundant these anciently 
were in the plains of Palestine may be inferred from the il- 
lustration which they gave of plenteousness in the days of 
Solomon, who made cedar-trees like the svcamores that are 
in the plains for abundance. Producing frui's almost con- 
tinually, the gathering of them formed a peculiar occupation, 
associated, as in the case of Amos, with that of a herdsman. 
Tripoli could also boast of abundance of corn-fields, as of 
vineyards and of olive groves, that extended quite up to 
Lebanon. f 

Down to a still more recent period, many gardens in 
Syria were worthy of the ancient fame, justly once bestow- 
ed upon them all, and retained a richness and a beauty of 
which Turkish barbarism, conjoined with Arab spoliation, 
has since bereaved them. Of this fact a few illustraiions 
may be given. For half a day's journey from Tripoli, the 
most pleasant and fruitful plains abounded with fruit-trees, 
olives, and vines ; several gardens were full of excellent 
orange-trees. So, also, were the gardens of Napolous. 
Tiberias could still boast of the abundance of its palm-trees. 
Hamath, amid its many gardens, had some full of orange- 
trees by the river's side. The hills in the neighbourhood 
of Baalbec were mostly covered with vineyards, which pro- 
duced celebrated grapes.| Of Saide, where a great silk 
trade was carried on, it was a saying, " So soon as they 
can get but a little piece of rock, if they can make two fin- 
gers' breadth of earth upon it, there they plant a mulberry- 



* RauwolfPs Trav., p. 21, 22. t Ibid., p. 48-51. 

% Vaa Egmout and Heyman's Travels, vol. ii., p. 272. 

T 



218 STATE OF SYRIA IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 



tree at Saide." To the south of Beyrout,' a forest of pines 
extended to Mount Lebanon, over a space of twelve miles 
on every side. The orange garden of Faccardine, a prince 
of the Druses, who had visited Italy, may be an illustration 
of what Syria might be, with such paradises spread over it, 
were truth to prevail, and war to cease, and art to be com- 
bined with soil and climate to render it a glorious land. " It 
contained," as described by Maundrell at the close of the 
seventeenth century, " a large quadrangular plat of ground, 
divided into sixteen lesser squares, four in each row, with 
walks between them. The walks are shaded with orange- 
trees, of a large, spreading size, and all of so fine a growth, 
both for stem and head, that one cannot imagine anything 
more perfect in their kind. They w^ere, at the time when 
we were there, as it were, gilded with I'ruit, hanging thick- 
er upon them than ever I saw apples in England. Every 
one of these sixteen lesser squares in the garden was bor- 
dered with stone ; and in the stonework were troughs very 
artificially contrived, for conveying the water all over the 
garden, there being little outlets cut at every tree for the 
stream, as it passed by, to flow out and water it. Were 
this place under the cultivation of an English gardener, it 
is impossible anything could be made more delightful. But 
these hesperides were put to no better use, when we saw 
them, than to serve as a fold for sheep and goats, insomuch 
that in many places they were up to the knees in dirt, so 
little sense have the Turks of such refined delights as these, 
&c. On the east side of this garden were two terrace 
walks, risincr one above the other, each of them having an 
ascent to it of twelve steps. They had both several fine, 
spreading orange-trees upon them, to make shades in prop- 
er places, and at the north end they led into booths, and 
summer houses, and other apartments very delightful,"* 

While, in the progress of desolation, the proofs that Syr- 
ia had once been a glorious land, in which the inhabitants 
lacked not anything, were ever diminishing generation after 
generation, there were still some signs, down to the last cen- 
tury, as there are some in the present, of what it once had 
been, and how it might be turned into a garden again. But 
the general description by which it was delineated five or 
six centuries ago, or even within half tha*. period, when sub- 
jugated by the Ottoman Turks, would, except as to its un- 

* Maundrell's Travels, p. 59. 



STATE OF SYRIA IN THE MIDDLE AGES, 219 

changed natural fertility, ill befit it in the present day. In 
the eleventh century, an eyewitness could thus describe 
what he saw. "The soil [of the Holy Land] is itself most 
fruitful in corn, so that it yields a large produce with the 
slightest labour. It is naturally so rich that it needs no ma- 
nure. Cotton is cultivated. Sugar-canes also grow, from 
which sugar of the finest quality is made. I ingenuously 
confess that apples and pears, and similar fruits, do not grow 
in the Holy Land, but they are brought from Damascus, 
though from the heat they cannot be long preserved. But in- 
stead of them they have other fruits, which are preserved on 
the trees throughout the 3'ear, for you often at the same time 
see the same tree bearing both blossom and ripe fruit. From 
these the inhabitants make various preserves, &;c., with 
which they enrich their food, whether of bread, flesh, fish, or 
other meats. They have also large citrons, from which they 
make the finest confections. They have also other excellent 
and wonderful apples, called the apples of Paradise, which 
grow in clusters like grapes, so that frequently a hundred ap- 
ples may be seen on a single bunch (simul conglobata). 
There are many vines in the Holy liand, and there would be 
more if the Saracens were not prohibited from the use of wine. 
Holding the greater part of Palestine in subjection, they root 
out the vines wherever they find them. The best vines are 
grown in the valley of Bethlehem, and in Nehel-Eschol, and 
also near Sidon, Antaradus, and under Mount Lebanon ; 
and, as the inhabitants of Antaradus told me, they collect 
wine from the same vine three times a year, that is, they 
have in one year three gatherings of grapes ; for when the 
vine has brought forth the accustomed clusters in March, 
the wood which is without fruit is cut off, and then, from 
the stem that is left, new shoots bearing fruit-buds sprout 
forth, which being cut olT, produce new branches in May 
that bear late grapes. By this art, the ripe grapes in Au- 
gust require three gatherings. The second, that blossomed 
in April, are gleaned in September, and the third in October. 
Hence it is that in the Holy Land grapes are sold from the 
day of John the Baptist to the day of St. Martin (from the 
24th of June to the 11th of November). In that land they 
have also figs, pomegranates, honey, olive oil, cucumbers, 
melons, citrons, and many other fruits. The corn is also 
very fine, so that I never ate better bread than in Jerusalem. 
Deer, hares, partridges, wild boars, quails, oic, abound in 



220 PROGRESSIVE DESOLATION OF SYRIA. 



the Holy Land, and cantiels are most numerous"* (A.D. 
1233). 

In the fourteenth century Syria had not lost its title to be 
reckoned, in fact, as a goodly land. It was in that age brief- 
ly described by Ibn 01 Wardi, in the first words of the ge- 
ographical extract affixed, in the Leipsic edition (A.D. 1756), 
to Ahulfeda's Syria, as " an extensive region abounding with 
all good things, having gardens, paradises, woods, meadows, 
delicious valleys, varieties of fruits, and abundance of cattle. 
It then contained thirty fortresses."! 

The curses of a broken covenant had not then all fallen 
with their utmost weight upon the land, nor had the time 
then come when the fortress should finally cease from 
Ephraim, and the land be utterly desolate, and the cities 
desolate without inhabitants, and the houses without man. 
And reduced as it was from what it had been, yet in popu- 
lation and in produce far more than a tenth was left; and 
the time was not come when they who laid the land deso- 
late should go forth out of it, and the wanderers among the 
nations for many centuries should find at last a home as Ja- 
cob's children in Jacob's heritage. The second wo had first 
to do all its work, and the land of Israel had to be subjected 
for centuries to Ottoman government and Arab spoliation. 



CHAPTER VI. 

PROGRESSIVE DESOLATION OF SYRIA, 

Before proceeding to the melancholy review of the 
ruins which now overspread Syria, even as it was for 
ages overspread with ancient and flourishing cities, 
towns, and villages, and unfolding the record which the 
judgment-stricken land does bear, and thereby showing 
their number and their names more fully than any scrip- 
tural or other historical record has borne, it may be 
worth a moment's pause to glance at a few illustrations 
of the last staore of a long- course of desolation, and to 
note the difference between what was, when Edrisi, Abul- 

Terrs Sancts Descriptio. Brocardo. Orbis Novus, p. 281, 282. 
t Tabula SyricE, p. 169. 



PROGRESSIVE DESOLATION OF SYRIA. 



221 



feda, and Ibn 01 Wardi wrote, and what is, as every 
modern traveller, in altered terms from theirs, repeats 
the tale concerning- cities that now "rejoice" not, and 
fortresses that boast no more. 

"From Zebdeni there were continuous gardens even 
to Damascus." " The plain of Zebdeni," which lies be- 
tween it and Damascus, "is about three quarters of an 
hour in breadth, and three hours in length. It is watered 
by the Barada, one of whose sources is in the midst of 
it. We followed it from one end to the other. Its cul- 
tivable ground is waste till near the village of Beroudj, 
where I saw plantations of mulberry-trees, which seemed 
to be well taken care of. Half an hour from Beroudj is 
the village of Zebdeni, and between them the ruined 
Khan Benduk."* '■'■Zebdeni to Damascus. — The valley 
of Zebdeni appeared quite uncultivated, though the soil 
is good, and it is watered by the Barada and several 
other streams."! 

"Antioch," five centuries ago, "surrounded by huge 
walls, was a great city, next to Damascus the most de- 
lightful city in Syria." "The present town, which is 
a misera' le one, does not occupy more than one eighth 
part of the space included in the old walls, which have a 
fine, venerable appearance. "J 

" Jl/(7yr//'( which lies more than midway between Emesa 
and the sea) is a famous city, with meandering streams, 
flowing from fountains, from which the gardens are irri- 
gated. "§ " The town of Maszyad (or, as it is written in 
the books of the Miri, Meszyadf), surrounded by a mod- 
ern wall, is upward of half an hour (two miles) in cir- 
cumference, but the houses are in ruins, and there is not 
a sing'le well-built dwelling- in the town, allhoug-h stone 
is the only material used. It is (A.D. ISlO) inhabited 
by 280 families. The castle, built upon a hio-h and al- 
most perpendicular rock, commands the wild moor in ev- 
ery direction, presenting a gloomy romantic lundscape "|[ 

Baalbec was " a beautiful city, solidly built, and rich in 
the choicest luxuries," &c. "The walls of the ancient 
city may still be traced, and include a larger space than 
the present town ever occupied, even in its most flour- 

* Burckhardt's Svria, p. 3. t Travels in Syria, bv G. Robinson, Esq., I830* 
i Irhy and Mansrles, p. 229. ^ Abul., Tab. Syri8e,"p. 20. 
II Burckhardt's Travels, p. 150. 

T 



222 



PROGRESSIVE DESOLATION OF SYRIA. 



ishing state." The ruined town of Baalbec contained, 
when visited by Burckhardt, about seventy Metaweli 
families, and twenty-five of catholic Christians. The 
earth is extremely fertile. "Even so late as twelve 
years ago," as he relates, "the plain, and a part of the 
mountain, to the distance of a league and a half round 
the town, were covered with grape plantations ; the op- 
pressions of the governors and their satellites have now 
entirely destroyed them ; and the inhabitants of Baal- 
bec, instead of eating their own grapes, which were re- 
nowned for their superior flavour, are obliged to import 
them from Fursul and Zahle."* The progress of des- 
olation did not then cease over the ruins of the city of 
Baal. In 1830, or twenty years thereafter, Mr. Robin- 
son thus writes: On enterinjT Baalbec, "a sad scene of 
ruin and desolation presented itself on every side, a sol- 
itary house or two on each street alone remaining, and 
even these tenantless, or only temporarily occupied by 
Arab shepherds and their flocks. "f 

Kuat, Saramain, and Maarat Mesj'in, situated a day's 
journey south of Aleppo, were three cities worthy to be 
ranked among the celebrated towns of Syria. Their 
territorj/-, which lay in the vicinity of that of the ancient 
Colchis, could still boast, in the fourteenth century, a 
multitude of olives, figs, and a variety of other trees. 
Sarmin, situated in a fruitful soil, embraced in its pre- 
fecture many villages.^ " We went," says Pococke, " to 
see several fine ruins of ancient towns and villaofes, 
south of Sarmin. In Rany, Magnesia, and Ashy, we 
saw ruins of villages built of hewn stones." Kuph (the 
only name he mentions which at all resembles Kuat) is 
a ruined village of such extent, that it looked like the 
remains of a large town. JMarrah^ from being a popu- 
lous city, was then reduced to a poor little town, and is 
now a "poor little village." Remarkable as it is for 
the great number of ancient cisterns and wells hewn in 
the rock which it still exhibits, Sarmin^ no longer the 
chief city of a rich district, has now sunk into a " vil- 
lage ;" and where the olive, the fig, and other trees 
adorned the city and the surrounding region, "a few 
clumps of olives," in a "country otherwise destitute of 

* Burckhardt's Travels, p. 10, 13, 15, t Robinsoirs Travels, p, 93, 

X Abulfeda, p. 21, 23, 111, 115. 



PROGRESSIVE DESOLATION OF SYRIA. 223 



wood and naked,"* have themselves become like the 
two or three berries on the top of the uttermost bough, 
or the four or five in the outmost fruitful branches that 
are left when the olive has been shaken. 

The ancient city of Bosra had a citadel of the strong- 
est structure, like that of Damascus. f To the west of 
it lay the strong castle of Aaglun^ then recently built, 
and to the east, Scharchod was also fortified by a strong 
citadel. The castle of Adjeloon^ like the rest, was wor- 
thy of its high fame. Built upon a rock, and surmount- 
ed by a moat cut out of the rock, faced with masonry 
when needful, " it must," says Buckingham, " have been 
originally considered one of the strongest positions in 
the country," though in the hands of its present posses- 
sors " the castle may be almost said to be in ruins, though 
many parts of it are still habitable, "J &c. The castle of 
Salgkud occupied a fine elevation, is founded on a rock, 
and surrounded by a broad and deep ditch hewn out of 
the rock, the area on which it stands beinof eio:ht hundred 
paces in circuit. The castle is abandoned, and the city 
or town is now entirely in ruins, and without a single in- 
habitant. § " The large castle of Bosra is one of the best 
built citadels of Syria, and is surrounded by a deep ditch. 
Its walls are very thick, and in the interior are alleys, 
dark vaults, subterraneous passages, &c., of the most 
solid construction. "II " In centre of the castle is a fine 
theatre, apparently of great extent and beauty, in its 
original state, though now confounded with other ruins," 
&c. " There were seven or eight ranges of benches, 
gradually rising and receding as they rose, in the man- 
ner of all the theatres of antiquity. The upper range 
was terminated by a fine Doric colonnade running all 
round the semicircle, the pillars being about three feet 
in diameter, supporting a plain entablature. The circle 
of the upper rano^e of seats was two hundred and thirty 
paces." The entrances for the visiters of this theatre 
seemed to be " through arched passages, corresponding 
with the ancient vomitories, and about thirty in num- 
ber. "IF When Syria was invaded by the Saracens, Bozra 
was a strongly-fortified city, and " twelve thousand horse 

* Irby and Mangles' Travels, p. 240, t Abulfeda, Tab. Syr., p. 99. 

t Buckingham's Trav. among: tlio Arab Tribes, p. 151. 6 Ibid., p. 216. 

II Burckhardt's Syria, p. 233. % Buckingham's Travels, p. 204, 205. 



224 



PROGRESSIVE DESOLATION OF SYRIA. 



issued from its gates j" and five centuries afterward an 
army of Crusaders turned back from its walls, and did 
not venture to besiege it. But the contrast is striking. 
The town is all but utterly deserted 5 and when visited 
by Burckhardtj " the castle was garrisoned by six Mog- 
grebbyns only."* 

Ck;'sba?i was the metropolis of the fertile country of 
Balkaa when Abulfeda wrote, and Rabba Moab had 
perished and was turned into a village, and the large 
area on which the ancient city of Ammon was built was 
heaped with ruins. Heshbon was then surrounded with 
trees, and gardens, and fields. f But now at Heshbon 
are the ruins of a large ancient town 5 a few broken 
shafts of columns are still standing, a number of deep 
wells cut in the rock, and a large reservoir of water,^: &c. 

Jlskelon was a fine city, surrounded by a double wall, 
abounding in gardens and fruits, and was one of the 
must celebrated towns of the seacoast. The inhabi- 
tants drank out of fountains of sweet water. It was 
rich in olives, vines, nuts, and pomegranates. Every- 
thing was extremely cheap, and the soil very rich § 
"The position of Askelon is strong; the walls are built 
on the top of a ridge of rock, that winds round the 
town in a semicircular direction, and terminates at each 
end in the sea. The foundations remain all the way 
round, the walls are of great thickness, and in some 
places of considerable height, and flanked with towers 
at dilTerent distances. Patches of the wall preserve 
their original elevation, but in general it is ruined 
throuohout, and the materials lie scattered around the 
foundation, or rolled down the hill on either side. In 
the highest part of the town we found the remains of a 
Christian convent, close upon the sea, with a well of ex- 
cellent water beside it. Askelon was one of the proud- 
est satrapies of the lords of the Philistines ; now there 
is not an inhabitant within its walls ; and the prophecy 
of Zechariah is fulfilled, 'Askelon shall not be inhabit- 
of about two miles in circuit, and, as the Pacha of Egpyt 
ed.' "II "The city occupies, within the walls, a space 
has caused the sand to be cleared, with the intention of 



* Burckhartlt's Syria, p. 233. 
% Burckhardl's Syria, p. 3fi5. 
II Richardson's Travels, vul. ii., p. 202-204, 



t Ahulfeda, p. 11, 90, 91, 
<i Tab. Syr., p. 179. 



PROGRESSIVE DESOLATION OF SYRIA. 



225 



building- a new town and harbour from the ancient ma- 
terials, many interesting remains have been exposed to 
view. Near the centre of the field of ruins there has 
stood a temple of large dimensions, the pillars of which, 
though fallen, are still entire, each shaft being of one 
piece of gray granite. The pillars and entablature are 
of white marble, of the Corinthian order, and in the 
purest taste. Near this, a very beautiful colossal female 
figure, of white marble, forms part of the substructure 
of a building, and might be easily removed from its 
present situation. Friezes and entablatures, and frag- 
ments of marble statues, lie scattered about in every di- 
rection. One of the most interestincr ruins is that of 
an early Christian church, probably of the fourth or 
fifth century ; the walls, pavement, and bases of the col- 
umns showing the exact plan of the building, which cor- 
responds with that of other early churches in the Holy 
Land. The pavement, and the capitals and bases of 
the columns, are of polished white marble. The capi- 
tals are corrupt in taste, but beautifully carved, as is 
frequently seen in similar instances, when the arts had. 
begun to decline. They bear an eight-pointed cross, 
encircled with a wreath of laurel. Askelon was a bish- 
opric in the early ages of Christianity. Sandys describes 
it as ' a place of no note, except that the Turke doth 
here keep a garrison.' It is now a place of still less 
note, except that the deserted ruins, and the poor vil- 
lage of shepherds beside the walls, remain as an evi- 
dence of the fulfilment of prophecy."* 

Askelon has indeed drunk of the wine-cup of the 
fury of the Lord. Though its ruins, like many in Syria, 
give proof that it has been rebuilt again and agam, at 
last it has been cut off with the remnant of the valley. 
Annexed to these words is the question concerning it, 
" How long wilt thou cut thyself, O thou sword of the 
Lord ; how long will it be ere thou be quiet 1 Put up 
thyself into thy scabbard ; rest, and be still. How can 
it be quiet, seeing the Lord hath given it a charge 
nofainst Ashkelon, and against the seashore 1 there hath 
He appointed it."j 

These words of ihe Eternal may well denote the lapse 
of many ages. The sword of the Lord is not yet put 

* Kinneir's Cairo, sfec, p. 212, 213. t Jer,, xlvii.j 5-7, 



226 PROGRESSIVE DESOLATION OF SYRIA, 



up in its scabbard and still, along the seashore of 
Philistia, a land now no less troubled than ever; but 
the charge which the Lord gave against Askelon has 
been fully executed. And though, when the first king 
of Israel and his lovely son were slain, the sad tidings, 
as the lannentation of David bears, were not to be told 
in Gaza, nor published in the streets of Askelon, lest 
the daughters of the Philistines should rejoice, and the 
daughters of the uncircumcised triumph, yet it may now 
be told in the streets of any city, and published through- 
out the world, that, according to the word of the living 
God, not only hath the Lord cut off the sceptre from 
Askelon, but that city itself, in far later ages fenced 
with double walls, has become a desolation^ ivithout an in- 
habitant. The seacoast also, as every succeeding travel- 
ler now bears witness, and as the writer can personally 
testify, has become dwellings and cottages for shepherds^ and 
folds for flocks. It is not for the daughters of the uncir- 
cumcised to triumph at the tidings, but for all to stand 
in awe at judgments perfected at last — to stand in awe 
and sin not. 

It is not as the theme of such prophecies alone that 
we would here linger at Askelon. The interrogatory, 
how long! may demand a pause. The facts that that 
city — situated on the border of the Mediterranean Sea, 
and partly buried under sand, and far more desolate 
and broken than many other cities of Syria, so as to 
have become, in worldly estimation, a place of no note 
— was but recently about to be rebuilt, and that the 
purpose was only seemingly frustrated by the outbreak 
of a new war, and the expulsion of the intending re- 
storer ; that the preparatory work was done, and the 
sand cleared away, with the intention of building a new 
town and harbour from the ancient materials, and that 
many interesting remains were thereby disclosed to view, 
might not only excite some interest in a place previously 
reckoned of no note, but may suffice to show how the 
city is accounted worthy of being rebuilt, and how the 
ancient materials are well adapted for its reconstruc- 
tion. It cannot be held unwarrantable to expect such 
disclosures in other ruins; and even where these need 
not to be made, but heaps of hewn stones lie ready for 
the builder, the attempt to raise up fallen Askelori 



PROGRESSIVE DESOLATION OP SYRIA. 227 



may serve to show how practicable it is to renew the 
cities that need only to be repaired, or to raise up from 
their ruins the cities with which Syria was overspread. 

But, not resting on conjecture, or regarding mere po- 
litical expediency, we chiefly look on Askelon, desolate 
and uninhabited, as showing how it has reached the full 
measure of the Divine judgments pronounced against it j 
and we look on the attempt to raise it up, however 
premature or untimely it yet may have been, as a prog- 
nostic of a happier destiny that yet awaits it, as assu- 
redly as it has thus been brought low. For who can tell 
that the necessarily preparatory work, which it lay to 
the pacha's hand to do, for the final rebuilding of that 
city as it shall be rebuilt, may not have thus been accom- 
plished % The " field of ruins" may now be the more ea- 
sily cultivated, and flourish " a fine city" again. What- 
ever may be problematical, this is not ; for the mouth of 
the Lord hath spoken it : In the houses of Askelon shall 
they (the Jews) lie down in the evening : for the Lord their 
God shall visit them, and turn away their captivity.* 

That which is thus said of it is said also of all the 
cities of the land. How numerous they were in ancient 
times we have already seen ; and still more ample testi- 
mony the land itself does at last disclose. That they 
have in general reached, like Askelon, the last degree 
of predicted desolation, and that, like it, they supply 
ample materials for rising again, ph(Enix-like, from their 
ruins, even a cursory view may render luminously clear. 
In their multitude and in their magnitude, fallen and 
shrunk as many of them are, a palpable demonstration 
is supplied of the goodliness of the land which sustain- 
ed and enriched them all. And while scriptural history 
is thus corroborated, and scriptural prophecy thus ocu- 
larly set forth as perfect verity, the reader is entreated 
to bear next with the dry continuous detail of ruin after 
ruin, in the faith and assured hope, even as the cove- 
nant of God is true, that as the light of Scripture proph- 
ecy rests refulgent on them all, it shall yet be reflected 
in brighter glory than ever from the cities of Israel 
again, when Jacob shall have become the restorer of cities 
to dwell in^ and when the face of the whole land shall be 
filled with cities, 

* Zeph., ii., 7. 



228 



EUINS IN MOAB AND AMMON, 



Notwithstanding the interesting remains recently dis- 
closed to view, so soon as the attempt was made to raise 
Askelon from its grave, it is not from its ruins as they 
lie that its ancient beauty and strength are to be seen, 
any more than its once beauteous and fruitful environs 
can be recognised in the desolation around it. The 
circuit of ruined walls, if alone regarded, would in this, 
as in other instances, be a faithful index to the popula 
tion of the walled towns of Syria, if at all compared with 
the extent of modern cities of Western Europe, with 
their courts and squares spread over plains. They have 
rather their existing pattern in the city of Genoa, with 
streets narrow as the lanes of other towns. The streets 
of Damascus, the first city in Syria, are only wide enough 
for the passage of a loaded camel. And the walls of 
Aleppo, long, as now, the second of its cities, are only 
three miles or three miles and a half in circuit, though 
its population (including the suburbs) in the beginning 
of last century was " generally computed at 300,000,"* 
now reduced, in common token of progressive desola- 
tion, to a fifth part of the number. 



CHAPTER VII. 

RUINS IN MOAB AND AMMON. 

In commencing a survey of the ruins that now over- 
spread the land which was given by covenant to the seed 
of Abraham for an everlasting possession, it may not be 
amiss to follow, as previously, the route of the Israelites 
when they originally entered their inheritance. So soon 
as they reached it, they saw how goodly was their her- 
itage ; and the cavils of those who have traduced it, and 
denied its populousness in ancient times, may be con- 
fronted at once with the ruins of hundreds of cities or 
towns, as no equivocal proofs that tliey actually existed. 

The seed of Jacob shall finally possess Mount Seir 
and the remnant of Edom, which at first refused to give 
Israel a passage through their border. But when the 
whole earth rejoiceth, Edom shall be desolate. It is 

* Van Egmont and ileypa^n'g Travels, vol. ii., p. 338. 



RUINS IN MOAB AND AMMON. 



229 



written that, unlike the rest, its cities shall not return* 
The scene of momentous judgments yet to come, to 
witness which all nations are invoked, and the subject 
of a peculiar doom. Mount Seir could not but question, 
ably come within our province, while looking to the fu- 
ture as well as to the past, and noting the ruins of cities 
that shall be built again. 

But in the latter days^ the captivity of Moab and of 
Ammon shall be brought back.f These regions mani- 
festly lie within the borders of the promised heritage of 
Jacob; and a brief inspection of their ruined cities, 
which have «//, as such, testified to the express reality 
of the "burden" which they were doomed by the Lord 
to bear because of their transgressions, may prepare the 
way of entering on the more extensive survey of those 
ruined and deserted cities, built by aliens, that occupy 
the length and the breadth of the covenanted inheritance 
of Jacob. 

From the borders of Edom to the River Zerka, an- 
ciently the Jabbok, including Ammon and Moab, and 
a small part of the original inheritance of Israel that 
pertained not to either, an ample field of ruins, on which 
we would first enter, is presented to our view, where 
the Word of God, in respect to the desolation of the 
cities, has done its perfect work. 

In passing through the land of Moab towards its 
southern extremity, and to the south of Kerek or Carac- 
Moab^ after recording the names of various ruined sites 
which they saw from different points — five from one, 
and six from another — Captains Irby and Mangles give 
their testimony, from ocular observation, that the 
whole of the fine plains in this quarter are covered 
with the sites of towns on every eminence or spot con- 
venient for the construction of one ; and as the land is 
capable of rich cultivation, there can be little doubt that 
the country, now so deserted, presented a continued 
picture of plenty and fertility. ":|; In like manner, in 
journeying to the north of Kerek, before reaching the an- 
cient capital of Moab, they remark, "The several cities 
which we passed proved that the population of this coun- 
try was formerly proportioned to its natural fertility. 



* Ezck., XXXV., 9, 14. 
t Travels, J). 370, 371. 



u 



t Jer,, xlviii , 47 ; xlix,, 6. 
Ibid., p. 456. 



230 



iiUINS IN MOAB AND AMMON. 



But instead of startling the reader, if a stranger to 
the ruins of Syria, by a general and seemingly transient 
renriark, he may be introduced to a knowledge of them 
by following Burckhardt from the banks of the Zerka to 
the borders of Edom, marking the slow mode of East- 
ern travelling, where' three miles form the measure of 

an hour," the usual and sole mode of computation now, 
where Roman milestones once stood.* In the ground 
on which he thus treads, looking at ruins alone, he will 
not fail to recognise the names of some of those cities 
of Ammon and Moab on which the word of the Lord 
lighted, and on which it has fallen no less heavily than 
on Askelon. Places of no note they too may now be 
accounted ; but therefore is the word of the Lord veri- 
fied, that judgment has come upon all the cities of Ammon 
a?id Moab f 07' and near. 

The Zerka now divides the district of Moerad from the 
country called El-Belka. On the summit of a mount- 
ain, at the northern foot of which it flows, large heaps 
of hewn stones, and several ruined walls, bear the name 
of El-Meysera.'\ In one hour fifteen minutes is the ruin- 
ed place called El-Herath, about one hour to the south- 
east of which are the ruined places Allan and Syphan. 
At two hours is reached the foot of the mountain called 
Djebel Djelaad and Djelaoud (Gilead), upon which are 
the ruined towns of the same names. J The lofty mount- 
ain Osha lies between Djelaad and Szalt, which is distant 
four hours thirty minutes from Meysera. Szalt is (was) 
the only inhabited place in the province of Belka. In 
descending the valley to the south of Szalt, the ruins of 
a considerable town are met with, consisting of founda- 
tions of buildings and heaps of stones, the remains, 
seemingly, of the town (As Szalt) described by Abulfe- 
da, through which the water flowed which issued from 
a great fountain at the foot of the hill. In the southwest 
direction from Szalt, distant about two hours and a half, 
are fou?- ruined places. § East of Szalt about one hour are 
the ruins called El-Deir. 

From Feheis^ a ruined town at a short distance from 
Szalt, Burckhardt diverged to the ruins of Ammon, and 
returned to the same place by a different route, passing 

* Mr. Buckingham computes an hour as four miles. 

t Burckhar(it's Travels, p. 347, | Ibid., p. 348, ^ Abulfeda, Tab. Syr., p. 9?, 



RUINS IN MOAB AND AMMON. 



231 



ruins wherever he went.* " The extensive plain of 
El-Ahma, north of Ammon, is interspersed with low hills, 
which are for the g^reater part crowned with ruins. 
These ruins, as well as those in the Mountains of Belka, 
consist of a few walls of dwelling-houses, heaps of stones, 
the foundations of some public edifices, and a few cis- 
terns now filled up; there is nothing entire, but it ap- 
pears that the mode of building was very solid, all the 
renriains being formed of large stones. It is evident, 
also, that the whole of the country must have been ex- 
tremely well cultivated, in order to have afforded sub- 
sistence to the inhabitants of so many towns. "f 

Pursuing his journey southward from Feheis, we may 
follow Burckhardt for a single day, noting only how 
regularly ruins are bestrewed around the path, though 
not so numerous as in the vicinity of Ammon. " We 
passed Ardh-el-Hemar^ in the neighbourhood of which 
are the ruined places El-Rijhha., Shakour, Meo^kanny, and 
Megahhely. In 1 h. 45' we came to Kherhct Tabouk. At 
2 h. 15' is a ruined birket, a reservoir of rain water, 
called Om Aarnoud^ from some fragments of columns 
which are found here. In 2 h. 30' we passed on our 
right the Wady Szyr, which has its source near the 
road. Above its source are the ruins of Szyr. At 3 h. 
were the ruins of Szar. At 3 h. 30', and about half an 
hour west of the road, are the ruins of Tokhara^ on the 
side of the Wady Eshta, which empties itself into the 
Jordan. To the left of the road is the great plain, with 
many insulated hillocks. At 3 h. 45' to the right are 
the ruins of Meraszas, with a heap of stones called 
Redjem-abd-Reshyd. To the left are the ruins called 
Merdj Ekke. At 4 h. 30', and about three quarters of 
an hour to our right, we saw the ruins of Jfaom\ on the 
side of a rivulet of that name. On both sides of the 
road are many vestiges of ancient field enclosures. At 
5 h. 45' are the ruins of El-Aal^ probably the Eleale of 
Scripture. El-Aal was surrounded by a well-built wall, 
of which some parts yet remain. Among the ruins are 
a number of large cisterns, fragments of walls, and 
foundations of houses, but nothing worth particular no- 
tice. At 6 h. 15' is Hesban. Here are the remains of 
^ large ancient town, &c. About three quarters of an 

* J3urckhardt, p. 355, f Ibid., p. 357, 



232 



EUINS IN MOAB AND AMMON. 



hour southeast of Hesban are the ruins of Myoun^ the 
ancient Baal Meon. Proceeding in a nnore easterly di- 
rection, at 6 h. 45 , about an hour distant fronri the road, 
I saw the ruins of Djelouh^ at a short distance to the 
east of which are the ruined places culled El-Samek, El- 
Mesouch^ and Om-el-Aamed^ situated close together upon 
low elevations. At 7 h. 15 is El-Refeyrat, a ruined town 
of some extent. In seven hours and a half we canrie 
to the renriains of a well-paved ancient causeway, ap- 
parently a Koman work. At the end of eight hours we 
reached Madeba, the ancient Madeba, built upon a round 
hill, and at least half an hour (or two miles) in circum- 
ference. There are many remains of the walls of pri- 
vate houses, constructed with blocks of silex, but not a 
single edifice is standing. There is a large birket, 
which, as there is no spring at Madeba, might still be of 
use to the Bedouins, were the surrounding- g-round clear- 

' DC 

ed of the rubbish, to allow the water to flow into it j but 
such an undertaking is far beyond the views of the wan- 
dering Arab. On the west side of the town are the 
foundations of a temple, built of large stones, and appa- 
rently of great antiquity. It consisted of two equal di- 
visions, of each of which, with an opening between, the 
walls were forty paces on one side by thirty-four on the 
other, or the whole length about eighty paces, and the 
breadth forty. About half an hour west of Madeba are 
the ruins o{ El-Teym^ perhaps the Kerjathaim of Scrip- 
ture; a very large reservoir is cut entirely in the rock, 
and is still filled in the winter with rain water."^ 

Such in this respect is an illustration of travelling 
now in the lands of Moab and of Ammon, as generally 
throughout Syria, not from town to town, but from ruin 
to ruin. In continuing his journey, ere Moab was left 
behind, Burckhardt passed other twenty ruined sites^ be- 
sides villages ; and exclusive of these, he enumerates oth- 
er seventeen in the district of Kerek, which are not all, 
but " the principal," of a great number of ruined places 
in the district of Kerek in the land of Moab. 

At El-Kerr^ in the southern extremity of Moab, per- 
haps the nncient Kara, a bishopric belonging to the di- 
ocess of Rabba Moabitis, are the ruins of a city of con- 
siderable extent, of which nothing remains but heaps of 

* Burckhardt's Travels, p. 363-3(51, 



RUINS IN MOAB AND AMMON. 



233 



stones. The fertile plain on which they lie contains 
the ruins of several villages. 

At a short distance from Rabba are the ruins of an 
ancient city, Beit Kerm. Their principal features, say 
Captains Irby and Mangles, are a great building, evident- 
ly Roman, resembling that which seemed to be a palace 
at Petra, and which they supposed to be the temple of 
Atargatis at Carnaim (Maccabees, v., 42). Eight col- 
unms of the portico which adorned its front lie on the 
ground. There are fragments of others within the tem- 
ple, the walls of which are fallen ; the stones used ia 
their construction are about five fpet long and two broad. 
The number of reservoirs or tanks prove that it once 
was populous. Passing southward from thence, at the 
termination of an ancient causeway, lie the ruins of Rab- 
b(/j about half an hour in circuit. Two ruined temples, 
of one of which a single wall, with several niches, re- 
mains, showing that the God of Israel alone was not wor- 
shipped there — an insulated altar, and two columns still 
erect, are now the chief distinguishable objects on the 
site of that city which was exceeding proud. Many frag- 
ments lying about, many remains of private habitations, 
but none entire, constitute the truly desolate heaps which 
the Lord has made of the metropolis of Moab. The walls 
of the ancient edifices, that were built like those of Beit 
Kerm, may, with other ruins, supply ready iriaterials for 
the reconstruction of the city; and the tw^o birkets or 
reservoirs, the largest of which is entirely cut out of the 
rock, together with several cisterns, may be turned to 
usefulness again when the ruins of the capital of Moab 
shall be transformed by another prediction into a city of 
Israel.* 

Mr. Buckingham passed from As Szalt throutrh the 
land of Ammon by a more easterly directi )n than that of 
Burckhardt, and travelling from thence to Oom-el-Rusas^ 
and returning from it by another way, had thus doubly 
the means of witnessinsf how ruins are everywhere 
spread over the land. In whatever direction it is trav- 
ersed, at the distance of six, four, or even two miles, 
one ruined town is passed after another, with ruined vil- 
lages interspersed. From one who had travelled much 
iu these regions, he was furnished at Assalt with the 

* Burckliardt's Travels i^i Syria, 

U 3 ■ ' 



234 



RUINS IN MOAB AND AMMON. 



names of several places which lay by two routes between 
these localities, the existence of all of which, though 
their names be given, would, from their vast number — 
a hundred and twenty-one — exceed credibility, were not 
their amazing frequency attested by every witness. Yet 
on recounting these, as he recorded their names, his in- 
formant, wearied with the tedious detail, exclaimed, with 
the oath of a Mussulman, " There are three hundred and 
sixty-six ruined towns and villages about Assalt, and I 
know the names of all; but who could have patience to 
sit down and recite them to another while he writes them 
in a book." His patience was exhausted, and he would 
not resume his task. There were many places of infe- 
rior note, which he thought too inconsiderable to name. 
For greater accuracy, the list was read over to him a 
second time after it was written, and confirmed by his 
assent to the positions assigned.* 

Startling as the number of the recorded names may 
seem, its accuracy is strongly corroborated by the Ara- 
bic list of ruined places in El-Belka, given by Mr. Eli 
Smith, and obtained by him from the inhabitants of Dibbin. 
Though it includes only the places between the Zurka 
(Zerka) and the Mogib, or Arnon, and thus does not com- 
prehend many of the towns of Moab, the number of names 
of places contained in it is one hundred and twenty-four. f 

It may seem to convey a more definite idea of the ru- 
ins to follow Mr. Buckingham a day's journey in the land 
of Ammon, as Burckhardt formerly through part of that 
of Moab. In journeying from Assalt to Amman, a dis- 
tance of six hours, he first reached Anab^ which, though 
without an existing dwelling except grottoes cut out of 
the rock, still retains its ancient name, and, together with 
it, sloping moles of masonry and vestiges of ancient work. 
An hour from hence he arrived at Fahaez (Feheis), a ru- 
ined town, in which he observed the number of at least 
a hundred dwellings, all built of stone, in the construc- 
tion of which the Roman arch is very prevalent. An 
hour thereafter, four ruined villages intervening, Deer- 
el-JVassara, or the convent of the Christians, is reached, 
a ruined town of greater extent than Fahaez. The large 
size of the stones, and the deep hue of age spread over 

* Buckingtvain's Travels among the Arab Tribes, p. 44-46. 

t Robinson and Smith's Biblical Researches, vol. iii., Appendix, p. 167. 



RUINS IN MOAB AND AMMON. 



235 



every part, denote a high antiquit)'. No one edifice re- 
mains perfect; and in some the dilapidation is so complete, 
that soil has collected over and above the fallen heap of 
stones, in which large trees have taken root, and nearly 
the whole of the site is now covered with wood. Yet, fall- 
en and almost covered though it be, it abounds with mate- 
rials for reconstruction. The stones which form the fallen 
heaps were " smoothly hewn, the masonry of the best kind, 
the work having all the usual appearance of being Roman in 
its construction."* 

Proceeding from thence for a mile through a thick forest 
of large trees, on clearing it he came on a fine plain cover- 
ed with rich green turf, and passed by, without halting to ex- 
amine it, a ruined town, Daboak, all that he could learn con- 
cerning which was, that it had long since been abandoned, 
and in ruins. Preserving the same unvaried phraseology, 
as similar sights came successively in view, "In our way," 
he says, " we passed another ruined town, called Oom-el- 
Simack, where there were foundations of a circular wall still 
visible ; and around us, in every direction, luere remains of 
more than fifty towns and villages, which were once main- 
tained by the productive soil on which they were so thickly 
studded. As their names were mentioned to me, I recog- 
nised many of those contained in the list drawn up by me 
at Assalt.f 

" For the space of two miles before reaching Ammon, 
pieces of broken pottery strewed over the ground indicate the 
approach to the ruins of a great city. The remains of a large 
isolated building of excellent masonry, with sculptured blocks 
scattered near it on the ground, first meet the view of the 
traveller, once, as is supposed, an outer gate of the city, or 
a triumphal entrance. The castle of Amman, a large enclo- 
sed ruin, occupying entirely the summit of a small steep hill, 
has the appearance of a fortress. On the other side the wall 
ascends like a sloping mole, the masonry of which is excel- 
lent, the stones being squarely hewn and nicely adjusted, &c. 
The steep ascent of this ruined mass is passed over large 
heaps of fallen stones till the eastern gateway is reached, 
which leads to an open square court, with arched recesses 
on each side, originally open, which had arched doorways 
facing each other. These were all either wholly closed or 

* Bnol<irisr>iam's Travels, ibid. 

t Buckingham's Travels among the Arab Tribes, p. 60-66, 



236 



RUINS IN MOAB AND AMMON. 



partially filled up, with the single exception of a narrow pas- 
sage just sufficient for the entrance of one man, ami of the 
goats which the Arab keepers drive in here occasionally for 
shelter during the night."* The castle of Amman having 
stood siege alter siege, is turned at last to its low predicted 
use — a couching -place for jiocks.\ The empty niches in the 
walls, adorned as they are by well-sculptured bunches of 
grapes and vine-leaves, and other carvings of an arabesque 
pattern, have none to bow before them now, and none to gaze 
on them but the senseless herds, who themselves are the un- 
conscious witnesses to the truth of the Word of the livinp God. 

But, looking to that word which abideth forever, and to a 
covenant yet to be ratified, which holds within its bonds Am- 
nion and all its land, we regard not exclusively the prostra- 
tion of a stronghold in fulfilment of a prophecy, nor the rem- 
nants of a glory that has long departed , but it is rather our 
proper business here to look around for materials that are fit- 
ted for reconstruction, in the time yet to come, when the 
children of Israel shall dwell safely, though in the land of 
their ancient enemies, in their own cities, that shall not stand 
in any need of castles to defend them, nor of walls or gates 
to shut out a single foe. These lie plentifully around, enough 
wherewith to build many mansions. 

" The castle walls," says Burckhardt, " are thick, and de- 
note a remote antiquity ; large blocks of stone are piled up 
without cement, and still hold together as well as if they had 
been recently placed. The greater part of the wall is entire." 
Heaps of various ruins are enclosed within them, among 
which are seen Corinthian pediments, cornices, capitals, 
pilasters, &c. Among other ill-defined remains are the ru- 
ins of a magnificent edifice, whose broken fragments bear 
evident marks of its former grandeur. The pedestals of the 
colonnade which adorn its front retain their original position, 
with many fine Corinthian capitals scattered around them. 
Large blocks, that formed magnificent columns, are partly 
buried in the earth, on one of which letters are distinctly 
seen, the characters being deeply cut, and not at all worn by 
exposure to the atmosphere or any other cause. A nong 
the ruins in the ciiy, a grand theatre, with more than forty 
ranges of seats, rising to an elevation of upward of 120 fex't, 
the upper range embracing a circuit of 200 paces, is an un- 
usually perfect monument of Roman luxury ; " for," says 

Buckingham's Travels among the Arab Tribes, p. 68. t Ezek., xxv., 5. 



RUINS IN MOAB AND AMMON. 



237 



Mr. Buckingham, " a very slight repair would make it avail- 
able for its original purpose." In the broad paiiiway that 
encircles the wliole at the top is a deep square recess, en- 
tered by a tine Corinthian doorway, with an architrave and 
pediment, having concave niches on each side, as if for the 
reception of statues. A " very slight repair" may convert it 
to a nobler use ; and when it shall be trodden, not by those 
who are lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God, but by 
those who snail know that the God of Israel is the Lord, the 
niches for statues shall not be filled again, but the idols shall 
be utterly abolished. Till then it may remain, as in ages 
past, a stable for camels, and a couching place for jlocks. 

In the succeeding summary of Burckhardt, it may be seen 
how temples are not free from the signs of past idolatry.* 
" The edifices which remain to show the former splendour 
of Ammon are the following; a spacious church, built with 
large stones, and having a steeple of the shape of those which 
I saw in several ruined towns of the Haouran. There are 
wide arches in the walls of the church. 2. A small build- 
ing with niches, probably a temple. 3. A temple, of which 
a part of the side walls and a niche in the back wall are re- 
maining ; there are no ornaments either on the walls or about 
the niche. 4. A curved wall along the \vater-side, with 
many niches," &lc. These, together with the theatre, are 
among the chief edifices that yet remain amid the desolate 
heap which Ammon has become, according to the word of 
the only living and true God. They are not without their 
significancy ; and such illustrations, often repeated, as the 
reader may perceive in the sequel, may aid in solving the 
problem as to the causes of the desolations which came over 
Syria many ages after the Jews were expatriated and the 
Ammonites cut off. 

Amid the ruins of Ammon is a large edifice, presenting a 
semicircular front towards the stream, built of rustic masonry, 
with large, solid stones of an oblong form, closely joined with- 
out cement. t A large and more perfect building, with Roman 
arches and a square tower ; the remains of a colonnade, and 
the front of some large edifice ; a grand building, once appa- 
rently of an octagonal form, has still four of its sides perfect ; 
a colonnade of large Corinthian columns was once ranged 
within it. Heaps of ruins lie in bewildering confusion around 
it, and near to it are large houses divided into many apart- 

* Buickhardt, 358. t Buckingham, p. 78. 



238 



RUINS IN MOAB AND AMMON. 



ments, but. all are alike deserted, though little labour would 
restore some of these buildings to useful dweilinos * &c. 

Leaving Amnion by a great road or causeway similar to 
that by which it was approached, the traveller, without di- 
verging to visit other rums, passes by it to Gkerbit-el-Sookh, 
ten miles distant, near to which are very extensive ruins yet 
unexamined, many Roman arches remaining perfect, several 
large columns still erect, pointing at a distance to the ruins 
of a town which must have been an important station. The 
public road which led from it to Ammon had many smaller 
settlements around it in the midst of a fine fertile plain. 

Continuing the route S.S.E., the remains of the large town 
Yedoody are passed, where many tombs and sarcophagi are 
excavated from the rock, near a quarry that has rested for 
ages. In another hour, in a continued fertile tract, capable 
of the highest cultivation, are the remains of a still larger 
city, Mehanajish^ with arches, columns, and sarcophagi, all 
Roman work, though none of the buildings remain quite per- 
fect. Passing it, and ascending an elevation, still more ex- 
tensive plains open to view, throughout the whole extent of 
which, says Mr. Buckingham, were seen ruined townsf in 
every direction, both before, behind, and on each side of us, 
generally seated on small eminences, all at a short distance 
from each other, and all, as far as we had yet seen, bearing 
marks of former opulence and consideration. 

Journeying onward, he passed successively various ruin- 
ed towns at similar or shorter distances. The ruins of Bu- 
nazein, inhabited by several Arab families. J Menjab, the 
site of some large town, among whose ruins are arches, 
columns, large cisterns or reservoirs, and deep wells, with 
an abundance of broken pottery scattered about in all direc- 
tions.^ At Jelool are still more extensive ruins, consisting 
of columns, heaps of large hewn stones, the remains of fall- 
en edifices, numerous cisterns, grottoes, tombs, and sarcoph- 
agi, all now entirely deserted, and exhibiting a melancholy 
example of the works of former opulence and power,]! 

At Oom-el-Rusas, the remains of ruined buildings, and 
foundations with broken pottery, and other vestiges of for- 
mer habitations, extend more than half a mile beyond two 
walled enclosures, filled with ruined buildings, of which the 
one is 200 yards square, and the other occupies a space of 

* Lord Claud Hamilton's MS. Journal. t Buckingham, p. 83. 

t Ibid., p. 86, § Ibid., p. 88. || Ibid., p. 96. 



RUINS IN MOAB AND AMMON. 



239 



nearly lialf a mile, the wall quite perfect all around. The 
streets throughout, at right angles from each other, were 
very narrow, indicating an extremely crowded population. 
Though the buildings seemed small and unimportant, and 
unadorned with architectural ornament, the masonry was un- 
usually solid, and the stones with which they were con- 
structed very large,* 

In penetrating from Assalt more directly into the interior 
of the country, towards Gerash ruins were discovered in like 
proximity and abundance. " Seven ruined villages, a hewn 
cistern, a reservoir for water, and other marks of former pop- 
ulousness, were seen in the early part of this route. In half 
an hour from the commencement of our journey we came to 
Zey, a ruined town, in which were seen five pillars, many 
private dwellings, originally constructed with large stones, 
but now completely demolished, and grown over with trees, 
with a very perfect sarcophagus. An hour's ride from Zey 
brought us to Ullan, a Christian town, very recently desert- 
ed, as it was the town in which Aivobi, the merchant of 
Assalt, was born and brought up to manhood ; it is now, 
however, entirely in ruins. Near it are hewn quarries out 
of which it had been built. The abundance of fine broken 
pottery shows that it was an ancient site. In half an hour 
I'rom Ullan is the sister town of Sihhan, larger than the for- 
mer. After passing ruined villages, Mr. Buckingham reach- 
ed the Zerka, " on the hill to the east of which were point- 
ed out to him more than fifty ruined villages." 

At the commencement of the present century, these coun- 
tries east of the Dead Sea and of the Jordan were utterly 
unknown to Europe. The enterprising Seetzen, who first 
penetrated them, contrasts what Ammon was with what it 
is : " All this country, formerly so populous and flourishing, 
is now changed into a vast desert." The language of Burck- 
hardt, who was the next to follow him, is not less expres- 
sive of both the depopulation and desolation : " At every step 
are to be found the vestiges of ancient cities, the remains of 
many temples, public edifices, and Greek churches." He, 
Mr. Buckingham, and Captains Irby and Mangles, speak of 
the same, and also of different regions, which they all visit- 
ed, in similar and almost in the same precise terms, in de- 
scribing how the land is overspread with ruins. The very 
recent testimony collected by Mr. E. Smith corroborates by 

* Buckingham, p. 100, 



240 



RUINS IN MOAB AND A MM ON. 



new and redoubled proof the same truth, which, long for-* 
gotten and unknown among Christians, or denied and deri- 
ded by infidels, must now be held unquesiioriable. The 
whole of this region, says Mr. Buckingham, was in a man- 
ner studded with the ruins of ancient towns, and must have 
been once highly fertile and thickly peopled. This inter- 
esting region appears, both from ancient testimony and the 
existence of innumerable ruins, up to the present time, to 
have been one of the most fertile and thickly-peopled coun- 
tries on the face of the earth, though it still remains a blank 
in our maps, and is considered by all who treat of these 
countries a desert or a wilderness. 

In closing our summary review of these ruins, over which 
the destroying angel has passed, and whose commission, 
according to the written word, has at last been fulfilled, it 
may not be unsuitable or unreasonable, without treating a 
sacred subject with levity, to listen to the testimony of an 
Arab chief as to the completion of the work of desolation. 
Nor does this testimony lose its interest or its force because 
the fact of the completeness of that desolation was conjoin- 
ed, even in the mind of such a man, with the expression, in 
the same breath, of a vague notion of some ancient prophe- 
cy concerning it. 

" I was asked," says Mr. Buckingham, " whether I had 
seen Gerash ? I replied, ' Yes ;' and Ammon ? continued 
my host ; I answered that they were both in our road. ' Ah,' 
said the sheik, ' these were both princely cities once, but 
as the times are always growing worse, so these have come 
to nothing at last,* as, indeed, was prophesied concerning 
them of old.' I asked him when and where the destruction 
was foretold."! 

The alleged prophecy was attributed to Solomon when a 
visitant to the king of Ammon ! But he whose first proverb 
was, " The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom," 
was not commissioned to reveal what Jeremiah was inspired 

* Buckingham's Travels among- the Arab Tribes, p. 94, 95. 

t Mr. Buckingham's Travels in Palestine and among the Arab Tribes abound with 
important facts illustrative of sacred geography, of the capabilities of the Ian J from 
its great natural fertility, &c., and of the inspiration of the prophecies from its ex- 
isting desolation, the illustrations of which are sometimes so incidentally given, that 
he who thus asked the Arab sheik where the destruction of Ammon was foretold, 
had complained but a short time before that his sleep had been broken during ni^ht 
by the bleating of flocks beside the ruins of Ammon— their predicted abode His 
Travels are enriched with facts which illustrate both the prophetic and historical 
truth of Scripture. The value of his works in these respects will doubtless bo in- 
creasingly appreciated. It is much to be desired that a cheap and partly abridged 
editioa of his Travels among the Arab Tribes were published. 



fiUlNS IN GILEAD AND BA3IIAN, ETC. 211 



to write concerning Ammon. That that city, and many- 
others, have come io nothing at last, may lead all to look for 
that which is written concerning the renoA'-ation of the cities 
which, like Ammon itself, shall be raised from their ruins. 
It is enough for the present to show that, when such a time 
is come, the face of the land shall he covered with cities, and 
that there is no need that there be, as there shall not be, a 
blank in the land of Ammon , 



CHAPTER VIII. 

RUINS IN GILEAD AND BASHAN, ETC. 

Before passing the Zerka, and entering a more ample 
field of nobler ruins, we may here, if anywhere, pause for a 
moment to drop a word of confident hope, like a seed which 
shall grow up into a tree bv a river side, that more than ru- 
ins shall yet be raised, and that the children of Israel, though 
long as low as they, shall yet have power with God, and 
shall prevail, and Israel's inheritance be Israel's again. 

When their patriarchal father, returning from Padanaram, 
had sent his two wives, and his servants, and his eleven 
sons, and all that he had, over the ford Jabbok, and was him- 
self left alone, there wrestled with him a man till the 
breaking of the day," whom he would not let go till he should 
bless him. Jacob prevailed — he was suffered to prevail — 
though his thigh shrunk at the touch of him who wrestled 
with him. The wrestling ceased when the blessing came 
from no human voice, " Thy name shall no more be called 
Jacob, but Israel — a prince with God — for as a prince hast 
thou power with God and with men, and hast 'prevailed.''^ 
On passing over the Jabbok he rejoined his family imder a 
new name, and the sons of Jacob were now the children of 
Israel, to bear in their posterity that everlasting name which 
the Lord had given them, the full import of which the world 
has yet practically to learn. Uttered as it was by the Lord, 
as Jacob returned to the land from which he had formerly 
fled, all its significancy shall not always be unacknowl- 
edged and unknown. He who, as a prince, had power with 
God, shall much more, as a prince, prevail with men. " Iq- 

X 



242 



RUINS IN GILEAD AND BASHAN, ETC. 



Stead of thy fathers shall be thy children, whom thon may- 
est make princes in all the earth. I will make thy name to 
be remembered in all generations," Ps. xlv., 16, 17. An- 
other task than that of the weary detail of ruin after ruin is 
vet in reserve for those who shall speak in the isles of the 
Gentiles, or in any part of the earth, of either side of the 
Jabbok, or any portion of the land of Israel, when the for- 
mer desolations shall cease to be reckoned by units, that may 
now be counted by hundreds. 

In leadinsf the reader from one field of ruined cities to an- 
other, and entering on a new stage in the dreary route, it 
may be enough to say that the stream which we here pass 
is the Jabbok, and, if endowed with the spirit of faith, he 
may well be refreshed for encountering a desert by tasting 
of that brook by the way. 

In passing through the land of Philistia and the hill-coun- 
try of Judea, the writer felt the oppressiveness of the sensa- 
tion irresistibly caused by the desolate aspect, in general, 
of all around, as if the cheerless scene had cast its own im- 
age on his heart. And he could not but seek relief in an- 
ticipating the time when tliejoyxhdX has gone from the land 
shall return, and the tree stripped of its leaves shall again 
be " a noble vine." The dust of Zion may well be loved, 
but that love is none the less because that dust shall yet 
bring forth fruit to Israel. And well may pleasure he taken 
in her stones ; but neither is it diminished by the fact that, 
in his own gracious time, the Lord shall raise them up into 
the palaces of Zion. Any sign that the time draweth nigh, 
or any token that, in the order of Providence, means are 
preparing, or that anything is ready — as all things finally 
must needs be — for the completion of his promises, when he 
shall rememher the land, is like a fountain of living water in 
a desert, the deliciousness of which can only be tasted there. 

On entering, therefore, on a more extensive field of ruins, 
first disclosed to view in these latter days, every one who 
can look around him with the eye of faith may now see such 
signs rising conspicuously into view ; and may taste, if he 
will, that sweet fountain, which the very desolation or de- 
sertion of these cities has opened up for refreshing the faith 
of the Christian, and raising or reviving his hope that the 
time of Israel's redemption draweth nigh. 

A light from heaven can alone enlighten the dark path on 
which we are entering, as that on which we have already 



kCINS IN GILEAD AND BASHAN, ETC. 



243 



trodden. But that liglit is clear. They shall huild the old 
wastes, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they 
shall repair the waste cities, the desolations of many genera- 
tions* There are distinctions here between these things 
thus severally marked, and there is a corresponding distinc- 
tion in the works that have severally to be done. Hitherto 
we have looked on ruined towns, that need, with scarcely 
an exception, to be raised from the very dust. Some of 
these, like many others yet to come into our view, have 
to be cleared of the earth or rubbish that encumbers, and of 
the trees that cover them. All that have already been 
reviewed have to be huilt or raised up from their foundations ; 
but there are many others to which these terms are not ap- 
plied, which, notwithstanding, have to be repaired or re- 
newed, and to be inhabited again, though all empty now. 
Different terms, expressive of the desolation, seem to denote 
its diversity. The same word which in the original de- 
scribes the waste cities, is applied by the same prophet to 
the desolation of the highways, identifying that with their 
being deserted ot forsaken — the highways lie waste; the 
wayfaring man ceaseth. The same distinction is otherwise 
implied or expressed. They that shall be of thee shall build 
the old waste places : thou shalt raise up the foundations of 
many generations ; and thou shalt be called the repairer 
OF THE BREACH, the restorer of cities to dwell in.j The 
blindness of Israel was to continue " until the cities be 

WASTED without AN INHABITANT, AND THE HOUSES WITH- 
OUT MAN." 

Long as darkness has rested on the ancient cities of Is- 
rael, this torch from the hand of him whose lips were touch- 
ed with fire from off the altar of Israel's God, may light our 
way in joyful hope throughout them all, and shed its cheer- 
ing light alike on the lowest of the ruins, and the largest of 
the deserted towns that have withstood unshaken the rava- 
ges of time. But it is needful only, without any such aid, to 
look on them as they are, in order to see, as plainly as the 
prophet has foretold, how many cities can be built again only 
by being raised upfront their very foundations ; how others 
have to be repaired or renewed rather than to be rebuilt ; how 
habitations have heen forsaken and left like a wilderness ;\ 
how the palaces have been forsaken, and the city has been 
left how the cities have been forsaken, so that men do not 

* Isa., Iviii., 12. t Ibid. ± Ibid., xxvii., 10. 9 Ibid., xxxii., 14. 



244 



RUINS IN GILEAD AND BASHAN, ETC. 



dwell therein ;* and how, whatever may be signified by the 
fact, it is itself visible and indisputable, the cities are wasted 
without i^ihahitant, and the houses without man.j 

Ruins are as abundant on the north as on the south of the 
Zerka. They are still met with " at every step." The 
next district on which we enter also boasts of its 366 ru- 
ined towns and villages, a hyperbolical mode of expression, 
denoting a vast number. But though, strictly speaking, they 
be not so numerous as days in the year, the allegation, as com- 
paratively near to the truth, may be more justifiable there 
than in other lands, limited to a similarly defined territory ; 
and these regions, that vie with each other now in the mul- 
titude of their ruins, as anciently in the magnificence of 
their cities, have less reason than any country in Europe, 
were its towns and villages estimated so highly, to blush at 
such a boast, for the number of ruins is greater there than 
that of cities or towns in any equal space, China itself scarce- 
ly excepted. 

Having seen, specially, how numerous are the ruins that 
are spread over the now houseless lands of Moab and Am- 
mon, pages need not be filled with the names of those which 
bestrew the kingdom of Bashan in numbers amply sufficient 
to vindicate the scriptural record, concerning its sixty cities, 
besides unwalled toivns and villages a great many, which per- 
tained to its ancient kingdom, the loss of which gave to Og, 
king of Bashan, an immortal name. But as this record, like 
others, has been seized on and assailed, it may not be amiss 
to show specially here, exclusive of their multiplicity, what 
noble cities that land did sustain, and how these very ruins, 
from the beauty of their edifices and solidity of their struc- 
ture, may mock in return the proudest of the cities in which 
these scoffers dwell. 

The cities of the Decopolis might, in ancient times, like 
those of Judea, have maintained a mutual rivalry ; but scarce- 
ly anywhere are ruins to be found which outvie those of Je- 
rash, supposed, from the similarity of the name, to be the 
ancient Gerasa, situated on a small stream which flows into 
the Zerkah. They not only prove the magnificence and im- 
portance of the ancient city, but, though unknown, like those 
of Petra, till the present century, they show that even Pal- 
myra and Baalbec were not unrivalled in the splendour of 
their edifices by other cities that, like them, once stood in 

* Jeremiah, iv., 29. f Isa.,Ti., 11. 



RUINS IN GILEAD AND BASH AN, ETC. 



245 



their glory within the allotted inheritance of Israel. Fallen as 
they are, enough is left to prove that the banks of a streamlet 
of that oft-derided land were so enriched and adorned, even 
by a people given up to idolatry, as to challenge in their mag- 
nificence, though in ruins, any spot in Europe, the most 
richly garnished with princely edifices. Lofty columns 
generally pertain only to palaces or temples, or other public 
buildings, which are thus, as well as by their greatness, dis- 
tinguished from the common habitations even of royal cities. 
But the streets of Jerash were lined with colonnades from 
end to end, and opened a way to public edifices, which yet 
lost not their distinction, while statelier or finer columns were 
doubled or multiplied around them. 

Extending on both the ascending sides of the small stream 
which nearly intersected the city, the walls, where not almost 
entire, form a distinct lineal mound of hewn stones, of a con- 
siderable height, and, in a circuit of an hour and a half, they 
enclose an immense space almost entirely covered with ru- 
ins. The principal street, extending nearly from one ex- 
tremity of the ruins to the other, was lined on both sides 
with columns, many of which are fallen, many fractured and 
shortened, and not a few still erect and unbroken ; some 
thirty feet high, others twenty-five, and the lowest about 
twenty : " where a high column stands near a shorter one, 
the architecture over the other reposes upon a projecting 
bracket worked into the shaft of the higher one." On one 
side of the street, in less than a third part of its length, thirty- 
four columns are yet standing. Behind the colonnade there 
are in some places vaulted apartments, which appear to have 
been shops. Cross streets, diverging at various distances 
from the long central street, had also their colonnades, and 
were adorned with public edifices or bridges, while the more 
distant spaces on each side are covered with indiscriminate 
ruins of the habitations of the more humble citizens. The 
remains of pavement in several streets may put to shame the 
capital of France. One, at least, of the bridges has been rais- 
ed to a great height, to render the acclivity less dangerous ; 
and, as observed by Lord Claud Hamilton, transverse lines, to 
prevent horses from slipping, have been cut on the pavement, 
as may be seen on some of the hills in the city of London. 
Near a copious fountain of the clearest water, not far from 
the centre of the ruins, is a large building, v/ith massive 
walls, consisting of arched chambers, similar to Roman baths, 

X 2 



246 RUINS IN GILEAD AND BASHAN, ETC. 



which was doubtless a public bath ; another yet remains in 
the same quarter, which was surrounded by a colonnade, some 
of the pillars of which are still erect. Opposite to the large 
bath, in a straight line across the centre of the city, passing 
an elevated bridge anciently environed by ornamental struc- 
tures, and from thence through a street lined on both sides 
by columns, an arched gateway, facing the chief street, 
leads to the splendid remains of a magnificent temple, such 
as few countries could have ever shown. The base of the 
edifice is now covered with its fallen roof. Three of the 
walls still stand, showing the niches for images. The front 
of the temple was adorned with a noble portico, with three 
rows of grand Corinthian columns thirty-five or forty feet in 
height, the capitals of which are beautifully ornamented with 
acanthus leaves. The spacious area within which it stood 
was surrounded in like manner by a double row of columns, 
the total number of which, that originally adorned the tem- 
ple and its area, was not less, in the estimation of Burck- 
hardt, than two hundred or two hundred and fifty.* Near 
to this temple stands a theatre which has sixteen rows of 
benches, with a tier of six boxes, between every two of which 
is a niche, " forming a very elegant ornament," and as be- 
fitting a station for idols as the walls of a church. Such 
is the transformation it has undergone, that in 1839 a fine 
crop of tobacco occupied the arena, which is about fifty pa- 
ces in diameter. The theatre was adorned with a quad- 
rangle of fine large Corinthian columns, the entablature of 
which is perfect. 

In the construction of the city and the position of its prin- 
cipal edifices, now the monument of its glory, nature has 
been seconded or followed by art. An eminence on one 
end of the city, opposite to the termination of the grand 
street which led to the other, was the site both of a temple 
and of a theatre, which were placed in pagan juxtaposition 
like the former. The low hill on which they stood was 
connected with the princely street by a magnificent semi- 
circle of Ionic columns, embracing an open space at its base, 
fifty-seven of which are still standing, their height having 
been varied with the rising ground to give a uniform level 
to the whole entablature. The immense theatre, larger 
than that of Bacchus at Athens, and estimated as having 
been capable of containing eight thousand spectators, was 

* Burckhardt's Travels, p. 254. 



RUINS IN GILEAD AND BASHAN, ETC. 247 



partly cut out of the rock and partly built ; the front wall, 
or proscenium, is very perfect, and embellished within by 
five richly-decorated niches, w^hich are connected together 
by a line of columns, of which there is another parallel 
range within. Beside it are the remains of a beautiful tem- 
pie, ornamented with pilasters surrounded by Corinthian 
capitals ; without, it was surrounded by a peristyle of grand 
columns of the same order, supporting an entablature ; and, 
facing the city, there was a noble portico of two rows of 
columns, to which a grand flight of steps led from below. 
Now, in the words of Lord Claud Hamilton, " the columns, 
capitals, and cornice all lie confusedly in a common ruin. 
The view from this spot is still most wonderful, but in the 
days of Gerasa's glory it must have been a spectacle of un- 
equalled magnificence. The whole town, including a vast 
area, and surrounded by an immense wall, is at your feet. 
Immediately below is the noble Ionic crescent, from the 
centre of which the main street extends. Of the continued 
line of columns on each side, now eighty-three only are 
standing with their entablatures, but portions and pedes- 
tals of the remainder are clearly visible. Around them, on 
every side, are confused heaps of well-cut stone, and piles 
of ruins which have onlv fallen from the violence of ruth- 

w 

less barbarism. These columns, raising their slender forms 
among the general wreck, and stretching in so long a line 
amid the remains of former magnificence, produce an effect 
which nothing in Italy, Greece, or Egypt has yet presented 
to me. To the right, the noble temple first mentioned 
stands against the sight, displaying the beautiful proportions 
of its matchless portico, and in every direction, columns, 
colonnades, and massive walls attest the wealth, the pow- 
er, and the taste that once dwelt in this desolate spot, and 
read a lesson to human vanity that cannot readily be for- 
gotten." Looking on the splendid ruins from a higher and 
more distant elevation, Mr. Buckingham thus describes the 
magnificent scene : " The circular colonnade, the avenues 
of Corinthian pillars forming the grand street, the southern 
gate of entrance, the naumachia, and the triumphal arch be- 
yond it, the theatres, the temples, the aqueducts, the baths, 
and all the assemblage of noble buildings which presented 
their vestiges to the view, seemed to indicate a city built 
only for luxury, for splendour, and for pleasure, although 
it was a mere colonial town in a foreign province, distant 



248 RUINS IN GILEAD AND BASHAN, ETC. 



from the capital of the great empire to which it belonged, 
and scarcely known either in sacred or profane history. It 
would be vain to attempt a picture of the impressions which 
followed such a sight."* 

Bozrah, though anciently more famous, is not entitled to 
so distinguished a place among ruins as the comparatively 
obscure Gerasa. Still, however, while the remains of the 
castle and of its walls are tokens of the strength that has 
departed from it, it is not destitute of memorials of the ele- 
gance with which it was adorned, of the idolatry of which, 
even when nominally Christian, it was guilt}^ while it eve- 
rywhere bears witness of judgment, and, broken as it is, is 
full of ample materials wherewith to reconstruct a noble city. 

Its wide walls, in some places almost entirely perfect, 
are about three miles in circumference, but the immediate 
environs are also covered with ruins. The western gate 
of the town is a fine arch, with niches on each side, in per- 
fect preservation, A broad paved causeway, of which tra- 
ces remain, and vestiges of ancient pavement, are seen in 
many of the streets, with a paved footway on each side. 
All the streets were very narrow, just permitting a loaded 
camel to pass ; and, crowded as they are, indicate a most 
condensed population. The south and southeast quarters 
are covered with ruins of private dwellings, the walls of 
many of which are still standing, but most of the roofs have 
fallen. 

The first remarkable building described by Mr. Bucking- 
ham gives evidence at once of the nicety and solidity of 
its structure, and of the prevalence of a form of worship ill 
accordant with the simplicity of the Gospel. It is an evi- 
dence thus of what has been done, and might, were it need- 
ful, be renewed in the form of structure, and it bears wit- 
ness, too, like thousands of proofs besides, that the faith 
which was there established, and has perished, was not 
pure. 

The masonry of the exterior was smooth, well executed, 
and apparently old, the stones having been let in, or dove- 
tailed into each other, like those of other buildings in the 
Haouran, and thus united without cement. The interior 
presents a miserable work of the Greek Christians, by whom 
it was no doubt used as a place of worship up to its period 

* Buckingham's Palestine. Burckhardt's Syria, p. 252-264. Lord Claud Ham- 
ilton's MS. Journal, 



RUINS IN GILEAD AND BASHAN, ETC. 



249 



of destruction. The walls were stuccoed on the inside, 
and portions of this remain, showing that it had once been 
ornamented with portraits and figures of the principal Greek 
saints ; the pillars have also been marked with the cross, 
but seemingly subsequent to its original construction.* 

The same, or a similar building, is the first described 
also by Burckhardt. The roof is fallen in, but the walls 
are entire, having many arches and niches. There are two 
large niches on each side of the door, and opposite to it, on 
the east side of the circle of the sanctuary. 

Near it is an oblong square building, of which also the 
roof is fallen in, and the walls remain, having a high vault- 
ed niche. Between these is another edifice, the only re- 
mains of which is a large semicircular vault, with neat dec- 
orations and four niches in the interior ; before it lie a heap 
of stones and broken columns. f 

The great mosque of Bozrah, built and dedicated as it 
was to Moslem worship, must now be also numbered among 
the ruins. Part of its roof has fallen in. Ruined itself, it 
still bears witness of the triumph of Moslemism over the 
degenerate faith of the lower empire. From end to end, 
both walls are lined with a double row of columns, trans- 
ported here from the ruins of some Christian temple in the 
town. Sixteen of these are fine variegated marble columns, 
distinguished both for the beauty of the materials and of the 
execution. They are each about sixteen or eighteen feet, 
of a single block, and well polished. | Changed as their 
office hitherto has been, to take alternately their place 
among painted saints, or to be surmounted by a crescent, 
and unbroken as they have been for twelve hundred years, 
the time may not be distant when they shall undergo an- 
other transmutation, and become the ornament of an edifice 
neither desecrated by idolatry, as was that in which they 
first stood, nor destined to fall like the roof of the great 
mosque, the materials of which are now strewed around 
their base. 

But the principal ruin of Bozrah is not that of a mosque, 
but of a temple, which, like the other, though little remains, 
has still something to tell. " Of this temple nothing remains 
but the back wall, with two pilasters, and a column joined 
by its entablature to the main wall ; they are all of the Co- 



* Buckingham's Travels araonff the Arab Tribes, p, 167, 

t Burckhardt, p. 196, 197. ' t Ibid., p 228. 



250 



EUINS IN GILEAi) AND BASHAN, ETC. 



rinthian order, and both capitals and architraves are richly 
adorned with sculpture. In the wall of the temple are three 
rows of niches, one over the other. Fronting it are four 
large Corinthian columns, equalling in beauty of execution 
the finest of those at Baalbec and Palmyra (those in the 
Temple of the Sun at the latter place excepted) ; they are 
quite perfect, six spans in diameter, and somewhat more than 
forty feet in height,* These splendid columns, the monu- 
ments of a temple which triple lines of saints could not pre- 
serve, may yet adorn an edifice when the Holy One of Israel 
shall be worshipped there, significantly worthy of the name 
which the ruin now unintelligibly bears, " Serait-el-Bint-el- 
Yahoodi, or the Palace of the Jew^s daughter.^^\ 

Near to this ruin is a triumphal arch almost entire. The 
approach to it is choked up with private houses, as is the 
case with all the public buildings in Bozrah, except the 
church first mentioned. It consists of a high central arch, 
with two lower side arches, between which are Corinthian 
pilasters with projecting hases for statues. On the inside of 
the arch were several large niches, now choked up with 
heaps of broken stones. | Another triumphal arch of small- 
er dimensions is remarkable for the thickness of its walls. 

A building called El-Human, or the Bath, has in the in- 
terior four pointed arches, with concave recesses, formed by 
alternate layers or rays of black and white stone. The up- 
per dome of the bath was a brickwork of a bright red colour, 
neatly and strongly cemented together. Opposite to it was 
a large building entirely constructed out of the ruins of more 
ancient edifices. Its last use seems to have been that of a 
place of Christian worship. Some of the stucco-work on 
the wall was extremely rich. In some places were seen 
columns of white marble in one solid shaft ; in others, pillars 
of black basalt. Beside it is a square tower, the door of 
which is one solid slab of stone, hung by pivots traversing 
in sockets above and below. It is ascended by sixteen 
stages of steps, four in each, or sixty-four steps in all. On 
the top is an open space, enclosed by a high wall, on each 
side of which is a double arched window divided by a col- 
umn, the roof and ceiling being of solid stone. Every part 
of the tower is strong and perfect. § Such was the solidity 
of some of the structures of Bozrah. 



* Burckhardt, p. 229, 230. 
i Burckhardt, p. 231. 



t Buckingham, p. 200. 
^ Buckingham, p. 198, 199. 



RUINS IN GILEAD AND BASHAN, ETC. 



251 



Numberless as are the symptoms of the decline and the 
decay of Mohammedanism, the mosque of El-Melrak, with- 
out the walls of Bozrah, may deserve a passing notice. " Ibn 
Affan, who first collected the scattered leaves of the Koran 
into a book, relates that when Othman, in coming from the 
Hedjaz, approached the neighbourhood of Bozrah with his 
army, he ordered his people to build a mosque on the spot 
where the camel that bore the Koran should lie down." 
Such was the origin of the mosque of El-Melrak, or, a halt- 
ing-place. Mohammedanism had scarcely a halting-place 
in its rise, and, when the time is come, it shall have none in 
its fall. A few specimens yet remain of the Ciific inscrip- 
tions with which the interior of the mosque was embellish- 
ed. The dome which covered it was destroyed by the Wa- 
habees.* 

On the west side Burckhardt counted five springs of fresh 
water beyond the precincts of the town, and six within the 
walls, all which unite with a rivulet, whose course also rises 
among the ruins. In the eastern quarter of the town is a 
large reservoir almost perfect, 190 paces in length and 153 
in breadth, enclosed by a wall seven feet thick, built of large 
square stones, its depth about twenty feet.f 

Of the vineyards for which Bozrah was celebrated, even 
in the days of Moses, and which are commemorated by the 
medals of the Roman colony, K0A^2NIA BOCTPHC, not a 
vestige remains. There is scarcely a tree in the neighbour- 
hood of the town, and the twelve or fifteen families who now 
inhabit it cultivate nothing but wheat, barley, horse-beans, 
and a little dhoura. A number of fine rose-trees grow wild 
among the ruins of the town, and were just beginning to 
open their buds,| to blossom there, where the power of man 
has fallen, and all his glory has faded. 

A few striking facts demonstrate the extreme populous- 
ness in ancient times of that extensive region, which took 
its name from the number of the illustrious cities it contain- 
ed. Ruins testify more than any records that these were 
but the chief of many more. Brought newly to light as they 
are, only an inadequate representation of the stores of ruins 
with which it is full could be conveyed by following the 
track of those few travellers who have visited it, and by de- 
scribing even minutely what they saw. They seldom rest- 
ed, or could rest, to make a searching and satisfactory ex* 

* Buckingham, p. 235. f Burckhardt, p, 232, t Ibid., p. 236, ' 



252 



RUINS IN GILEAD AND BASHAN, ETC. 



amination. A transient inspection was often all that they 
could give. A written description on the spot was general- 
ly impracticable, or only effected by stealth. Frequently 
they could not turn aside to visit ruins in the vicinity of their 
path. Sometimes they travelled without intermission, with 
more than ordinary speed. Their united journeyings left 
much unexplored ; and they heard of ruins, and partly saw 
them at a distance, extending over regions which they could 
not penetrate. But, incomplete as their testimony is, there 
is no lack of proof that the cities and the towns were as nu- 
merous as any land could sustain ; and their peculiar fea- 
tures are sufficiently distinguished to trace in them a perfect 
consistency with what Scripture history has recorded, a pre- 
cise resemblance to what Scripture prophecy revealed, and 
an exact adaptation to all that it declares concerning the 
renovation that yet awaits them. 

In journeying through the Haouran, and passing along a 
low range of hills, Mr. Buckingham, timely profiting by a 
casual delay, took by compass, on the summit of a rocky 
eminence, the bearing of 25 towns, 3 of which were com- 
puted to be distant half an hour, or two miles ; 2, one hour ; 
1, an hour and a half; 4, two hours ; 6, three hours ; 4, four 
hours ; 5, six hours ; or twenty-five towns within a like num- 
ber of miles from the spot from which he saw them spread 
around almost equally in every direction. The castle of 
Salghud was seen at the supposed distance of twelve hours, 
or nearly fifty miles. 

He adds, " I have set down only the principal towns and 
places in view from the eminence on which we stood, omit- 
ting many smaller ones, but the enumeration is sufficient to 
show how populous a country must have been wherein so 
many towns and villages could be seen from a slight eleva- 
tion above its surface. Excepting in the immediate envi- 
rons of large cities, or on the borders of rivers, I should 
doubt whether any country on earth, not even excepting 
China, was ever more thickly peopled than these plains of 
the Haouran must have been when in their most flourishing 
state, with all their numerous towns fully inhabited."* 

Such is the testimony of one, than whom very few have 
travelled more extensively ; and his enumeration of the towns 
of the Haouran is exceeded, as will be seen, by that of others. 

The precise locality from ^yhich thes§ bearings were ta- 

* Buckingham, p. 186, I87, 



EUINS IN GILEAD AND BASHAN, ETC. 



253 



ken is definitely marked, namely, a rocky eminence about a 
quarter of a mile to the north of Sheik Hussein, and distant 
about eight hours, or twenty-four miles, N.W. i N. from 
Bozrah. 

From another spot, the ruined town Walter, seated on the 
top of a hill, and distant about twenty miles from the former, 
the same observant traveller took the bearings by compass 
of other towns, and computed the distances in miles by the 
eye. They were seen, as previously, in varying distances 
and in every direction, north, south, east, and west, spread 
over the face of the country. Twenty were there noted and 
named, the most distant of which were computed at twelve 
miles from the spot. 

The castle of Salghud terminated the journeyings on the 
southeast of the Haouran both of Burckhardt and Bucking- 
ham, but it does not terminate the region where ruined cit- 
ies abound. No European traveller has as yet penetrated 
beyond it. From its castle walls a public road" is seen 
extending southeast, doubtless the very same king's highway 
of which Abulfeda speaks, and which bore the name Ar 
Raszif, i. e., fortified by strongholds, and leading to Irak, or 
Persia. According to the itineraries, as he states, the jour- 
ney to Bagdad was about ten days.* The road remains, 
though the wayfaring man has ceased ; and on each side are 
ruined or deserted cities, in which no man dwells. 

" In the best maps which we possess of this country," 
says Mr. Buckingham, " the region beyond Jordan to the 
east is very imperfectly delineated and described ; but Boz- 
rah and Salghud form the extreme border of all that is known, 
and beyond this the country has hitherto been supposed to 
be entirely a desert. How was I surprised, therefore, to see, 
as far as my sight could extend to the eastward, ruined towns 
without number, and a country which promised a still rich- 
er field to the scholar, the antiquarian, and the traveller, than 
even the interesting region behind us to the west."t 

Besides five carefully noted from the west side, he took, 
from the eastern face of the castle, the bearings of those few 
places of which his guides could furnish the names. These, 
though few, the names of the rest being unknown, were ten 
in number, two of which are marked as large towns, within 
the space of eight miles on the eastern side alone. Mr. 
Eli Smith, whose testimony is enhanced by his long resi- 

* Abulfeda, p. 106. t Buckingham's Travels, p. 217, 218. 



254 RUINS IN GILEAD AND BASHAH, ETC. 



dence in Syria, his diversified travels throughout it, and fa- 
miliarity with the Arabic, obtained the names of twenty-two 
places east of Salghud, twenty-one of which are in ruins or 
deserted. But neither would his list appear to be complete, 
five names only being the same as those given by Mr. Buck- 
ingham, other five, or half the number of those he saw and 
noted, being omitted.* 

On as superficial and cursory a view as could at all convey 
any precise and adequate idea of a land once universally 
overspread with towns, it thus appears that the bearings 
were actually taken by compass, from three different points, 
of sixty-four towns in the ancient land of Bashan, in hastily 
traversing that country, not from end to end, but partly from 
one side to another, and that these were but the chief or 
best known of many towns or cities spread everywhere 
throughout the land. 

From " the rocky eminence," the first of these points of 
observation, both Iddaragh, the farthest town to the west- 
ward (W. by S.), lying at the distance of six hours, or above 
twenty miles, and the castle of Salghud, twice as far to the 
southeast, were at once in view. The most distant of these 
towns to the eastward (Talliloze, a large town) is reckoned 
eight miles E.S.E. of Salghud, the distance between the two 
extreme towns being about seventy or eighty miles, thus 
thickly studded with towns that the bearings of upward of 
sixty were taken from only three intermediate positions. 
Here, on scriptural ground and in the midst of scriptural 
names, which beyond a doubt identify the precise localities, 
the Christian reader will recognise, with hallowed interest, 
in Iddaragh or Draa, and Salghud, the once famous cities of 
Og, king of Bashan — Edrei and Salchah. At the former, 
that idolatrous monarch of many cities contended vainly in 
battle with Israel ; and there, though his power was gigan- 
tic like himself, he lost all his sixty walled cities and many 
unwalled towns, and his kingdom and his land in a day. 
He went out, and all his people, to the battle of Edrei ; but Is- 
rael smote him, and his sons, and his people, for the Lord 
delivered them into their hand.f They took all the cities 
of the plain, and all Bashan unto Salchah and Edrei, cities 
of the kingdom of Og, in Bashan .;{: 

It is doubly interesting, in looking now, as if by a single 



* Bucking-ham's Travels, p. 218. Robinson and Smith's Researches, vol. iii., Ap- 
pendix, p. 160. t Numb., xxi., 33, 35, t Pent., iii., 10; 



aUINS IN GILEAD AND BASHAN, ETC. 



255 



or second glance, from the one to the other of these very 
towns, and marking how numerous are the forsaken cities 
of the plain, to remember how they were thus, in a far-dis- 
tant age, introduced to the notice of all future ages, and had 
a name in history which shall never perish ; and now, vvhen 
they are disclosed at last, as if a second time, to view, after 
impenetrable darkness had enveloped their actual state for 
ages, to take a narrow inspection of those cities, whose 
strong walls of old could not keep out the covenanted chil- 
dren of Israel, to whom, as such, their land pertained, in or- 
der to see whether there be any cities without inhabitant, or 
houses without man, open at last for the return and reception 
of those within whose everlasting possession the land of Ba- 
shan lies. 

The territory south of Jabbok — we drop the heathen, and 
take up anew the scriptural name — includes but the half of 
Gilead ; and that at which we have immediately glanced 
does not embrace the half of the Haouran. From south to 
north, as well as from west to east, bearings of as many 
towns might again be taken from every similar eminence. 
Mr. Buckingham, without even leaving the house in which 
he took up his temporary abode at Mahadjee, north of Ezra, 
went up with his host to the terrace of his dwelling, and ob- 
tained from him the names of such places as were visible 
from his housetop, and took the bearings and the estimated 
distance of fourteen towns, chiefly to the north and to the 
south, within the estimated distance of twelve miles, ten of 
which are "deserted," ox forsaken* 

A description of the ruins of the Haouran alone, so far 
even as these have been discovered and examined, would fill 
a volume ; but the works of Burckhardt and Buckingham 
may be specially referred to as conveying very ample in- 
formation concerning that interesting region, which, after 
Seetzen, they were the first to explore. 

The town of Sa.lghud^ or Szalkhat [Salchah), as seen by 
Mr. Buckingham, appeared to have been quite as large as 
Bozrah, and had, among other buildings, a square tower not 
unlike the one described in the ruins of that city, contains 
upward of eight hundred houses ivithout a single inhabitant. 
It has a large mosque with a handsome minaret, the latter 
of which is only two hundred years old. The mosque seems 
to have been a repaired temple or church, as there are sev- 

* Buckingham's Travels, p. 286, 287, 



256 



RUINS IN GlliKAD AND BASHAN, ETC. 



eral well-wrought niches on its outer walls. In the court- 
yards of the houses of the town are a great nuaiber of fig 
and pomegranate trees in full bearing. Every house has a 
deep cistern lined with stone. There is also a large reser- 
voir. Only fifteen years since a few Druse and Christian 
families were established here as well as at German.* 

Fourteen hundred and fifty years before the Christian era, 
Salchah ceased to be a city of the King of Bashan, and was 
numbered among the cities of Israel. In the fourteenth cen- 
tury it long withstood a hard-pressed siege by the Sultan of 
Egypt. Only two centuries have elapsed since its chief 
minaret was built, the handsome ornament of a spacious 
mosque. In the outer walls of that mosque, the well-wrought 
niches show that it had formerly been " a temple or a church," 
as bearing, like many a wall in Syria, the common mark of 
paganism and popery. The judgments of a long-suffering 
God have come upon it at last. Now, for the first time in 
the present century, it is tenantless. The last inhabitants 
that lingered there have abandoned it, but bore the name of 
its citizens, and, when seen by Burckhardt at Khaleb, were 
still called Szalkhalie. The fortress, a stronghold by na- 
ture and art, which, like Askelon and many others, long with- 
stood an arm of flesh, still remains, with its ruined castle and 
empty houses, to show the power of the word of the Lord 
over it ; and, though tenanted in recent years, and still bear- 
ing the same name which it bore three thousand three hun- 
dred years ago, is now, at last, a city without inhabitants, 
and its hundreds of houses are each and all without man. 

The castle (see Plate), which has a general resemblance 
to those of Szalt, Adjeloon, and Bozrah, is nearly circular 
in form, and is surrounded by a broad and deep ditch, hewn 
out of the rock, and cased with masonry where necessary, 
the area on which it stands being eight hundred paces in cir- 
cuit.! Burckhardt estimated the height of the paved upper 
hill to be sixty yards. The wall of the castle is flanked all 
round by towers and turrets. Most of the interior apartments 
are in complete ruins. Many of the large paved stones, as 
Avell as parts of the wall, have fallen down, and in many 
places have filled up the ditch to half its depth. The town 
occupies the south and west foot of the castle hill : and, nu- 
merous as are the houses in the empty city, whenever it 

* Burckhardt's Syria, p. 100, 101. Buckingham's Trav., p. 212-220. 
t Ibid., p. 214. 



RUINS IN GILEAD AND BASHAN, ETC. 257 



shall be filled again with men of Israel, ample materials are 
prepared and at hand for enlarging it ; for castles may be 
transformed into peaceful dwellings when the Lord himself 
shall be the strong tower of his people. 

The country that lies between Salchah and Oerman, the 
intermediate distance being four or five miles, is full of ruin- 
ed walls. In Oerman, which is an ancient city, are three 
towers or steeples, like those at Kuffer. Between two Greek 
inscriptions, on tablets fixed in a wall, is a niche about four 
feet high. The town has a spring and several reservoirs. 
It is somewhat larger than Ayoun. 

Ruined vi^alls again extend between this town and Oer- 
man, distant one hour and a half. " At Ayoun are aboutybwr 
hundred houses without any inhalitants.^^* On its west side 
are two walled-in springs, from whence the name is derived. 
Burckhardt saw in the town four public edifices, with arch- 
es in their interior ; one of them is distinguished by the 
height and fine curve of the arches, as well as by the com- 
plete state of the whole building. Its stone roof has lost 
its original colour, and now presents a variety of hues, which 
on his entering surprised him much, as he had first supposed 
them to be painted. Beyond Ayoun, the ground for the space 
of three miles is covered with walls, which probably once 
enclosed orchards and well-cultivated fields. Abundant rains 
had covered the plain with rich verdure towards the close 
of November. t 

At the distance of two hours from Ayoun, passing inter- 
mediately the ruined castle of Keres, is the ruined city Za- 
houei-el-Khudder, equally distant from which is the ruined 
city Zaele, which stands near a copious spring, and is half 
an hour in circuit. Burckhardt records the names of nine 
ruined towns eastward of Zaele, and gives the following 
striking testimony analogous to that of Buckingham, concern- 
ing the region farther to the south and eastward of Szalkhat, 
showing, in either case, how numerous were the cities which 
overspread a land which the ravages of the Arabs have con- 
verted into a nominal desert. | 

"The great desert extends to the N.E., E., and S.E. of 
Zaele ; to the distance of three days^ journey eastward there 
is still a good arable soil, intersected by numerous tels, and 
covered with the ruins of so many towns and villages, that, 
as I am informed, in whatever direction it is crossed, the 

* Burckhardt's Travels, p. 97. t Ibid., p. 96, 97. X Ibid., p. 93-95. 

Y 2 



258 KUINS IN GILEAD AND BASHAN, ETC, 



traveller is sure to pass, in every day,j^ve or six of these ru- 
ined places. They are all built of the same black rock of 
which the Djebel consists."* 

Such from Zaele southward was the route by which Mr. 
Burckhardt approached to Szalkhat ; that by which he left 
it is not less copious in illustrations how cities are desolate 
without inhabitants, how houses are still standing without 
men to tenant them, and how other desolate cities have yet 
to be raised up from their foundations. 

Southward of Szalkhat one hour and a half stands the high 
Telahd Maaz, with a ruined city of the same name ; there 
still remain large plantations of vines and figs. Near it is 
another ruin south one hour, Tel Mashkouk, towards which 
are the ruins Tehhoule, Kfer, and Khererrihe 

Kereye, which he next passed, is a city containing hun- 
dred houses, of which only four were then inhabited. "It 
has several ancient towers and public buildings ; of the lat- 
ter, the principal has a portico consisting of a triple row of 
six columns in each, supporting a flat roof ; seven steps, ex- 
tending the whole breadth of the portico, lead from the first 
row up to the third. Behind the colonnade is a birket sur- 
rounded by a strong wall. "J Kereye is situated about three 
hours' journey from Salghud, and nearly the same distance 
from Bozrah. " It appears," says Mr. Buckingham, " to have 
been, in its flourishing state, quite as large as Bozrah, judg- 
ing from the extent of space now covered with its ruins. 
There were many of the large, massy doors of stone, which 
must be considered as a peculiarity of the aboriginal or earli- 
est style of architecture known in this country. 

Conjoining Burckhardt's account with those of Mr. Buck- 
ingham, who travelled in 1816, and of Mr. Robinson, who 
journeyed through the Haouran in 1830, and was accom- 
panied by Captain (now Colonel) Chesney, a succinct state- 
ment may be given of the chief ruins or remains of the nu- 
merous towns of the Haouran. 

Soueida, situated on the west side of Djebel Haouran, 
nearly opposite to Zaele on the east, was formerly one of 
the largest cities of the Haouran. The circuit of its ruins 
is at least four miles. In a street through which Burck- 
hardt passed, the houses are standing on both sides ;)| he 
was twelve minutes in walking from the one end to the oth- 

* Burckhardt's Travels, p. 94. t Ibid., p. 102, 10.3. t Ibid., p. 103. 

^ Buckingham's Travels among the Arab Tribes, p. 213. II Burckhardt, p. 81. 



RUINS IN GILEAD AND BASHAN, ETC. 259 



er. Like the streets of modern cities in the East, it is very- 
narrow, but on both sides there is a narrow pavement, and 
arched, open rooms, supposed to have been shops. The 
street commences at a large arched gate in the upper part 
of the town, descending from which, opposite to a fountain, 
is an elegant building of the shape of a crescent, the whole 
front of which forms a kind of niche, within which are 
three smaller niches. In the same street is an edifice with 
four rows of arches, on an inverted stone in one of the in- 
terior walls of which, a Greek inscription would seem to 
indicate that Soueida had been the station of the fourteenth 
legion. The edifice, now a mosque, is a hundred and fifty- 
feet in length. A tower eighty feet high, two sides of 
which are fallen, forms the termination of the street. The 
town was apparently intersected with streets passing at 
right angles through each other, which were paved with 
stones so firmly imbedded in the soil that most of them still 
remain. The houses are all of stone, and only in such as 
have been recently repaired is there any wood to be seen. 
Eight beautiful Corinthian columns, the remains of a colon- 
nade which surrounded a large building, now in ruins, are 
still standing on the top of the hill, four of which support a 
perfect entablature. A large building in ruins, to which a 
monastery was adjoined, still bears the name of El Kenis- 
set (the church), 130 feet long by 89 broad. At the east- 
ern end is a large niche, thirty-one feet across, with two 
smaller ones on each side. Apparently, there were for- 
merly columns with the lotus leaf, forming a gallery all 
around. It is now a roofless ruin. Soueida is (or was) 
the capital of the Druses, and the residence of their emir or 
prince ; but, though once a great city, as it might well be 
made again, it bears its proper designation, " a Druse vil- 
lage ," containing, in 1816, about 200 families. "It is well 
supplied," says Mr. Buckingham, " with water, not only 
from many streams in its neighbourhood, but also from a 
fine spring gushing from the solid rock. On the west end 
of the town is a lake or receiver, lined with stone, about 
600 paces in circumference, and in the centre of the town 
is a circular reservoir, entirely lined with masonry, more 
than three hundred paces in circuit, with a staircase to the 
bottom, and, as variously stated, at least thirty or fifty feet 
deep. Among the remains are those of a Roman theatre."* 

* Buckingham, p. 233-239. Burckhardt, p. 80-82. Mr. G. Robinson's Trav., vol. 
ii., p. 157-159, 



260 



RUINS IN GILEAD AND BASHAN, ETC. 



About six miles northward of Soueida is the large ruined 
town of Aatyl, now a small village in the midst of a wood. 
There are the remains of two ancient temples. One of 
these is in complete ruins ; on each side of the gate were 
two niches, and in front a portico of columns, the number 
of which it is impossible to determine, the ground being 
covered with a heap of fragments of columns, architraves, 
and large square stones. The other temple is of elegant 
construction. The sculptural ornaments are richly design- 
ed, and there are concave niches in several parts. It has a 
portico of two columns and two pilasters, each of which 
has a projecting base for a statue, elevated from the ground 
above one third of the height of the columns, like the pil- 
lars of the grand colonnade at Palmyra. Many of the an- 
cient buildings, with stone roofs, are still standing. In the 
centre of the town is a square tower. There was a large 
reservoir for water, and there are many houses unoccupied, 
there being only (in 1816) a few Druse families residing 
among the ruins.* 

Kanouat, or Gunnawat, retains ample memorials of a 
splendid city. Its site is overgrown with shrubs and oaks, 
which greatly conceal its ruins, of which the pillars, that 
rise from among them, give the lirst indication to the ap- 
proaching traveller. The first building described by Buck- 
ingham! is one in which the emblem of the cross is visible 
in every part, and the whole appearance of which proved it 
to have been a Greek church. Another fine Corinthian 
temple, 75 paces long and 35 paces broad, had a beautiful 
portico in front. On the east of it is an extensive building 
with colonnades, arches, doors, passages, and galleries so 
numerous, it is said, that it would take a whole day, at 
least, to give an outline plan of them. Another building, 
like a Roman temple, and a theatre, are also numbered 
among the ruins. But the principal building of Kanouat is 
a large edifice on a height, supposed to have been a palace, 
the masonry of whicji is peculiarly good. Large apart- 
ments, with columns highly ornamented, still remain, one 
of which is above 70 feet long and nearly 50 wide. Some 
of the columns of Kanouat, three feet and a half in diame- 
ter, and thirty-five feet high, are worthy of being ranked 
with the finest of those of Gerasa or Palmyra. Towers 
with two stories, raised upon arches, stand isolated in dif- 

* Burckhardt, p. 222-224. Robinson, p. 156. t Buckingham, p. 243-245. 



RUINS IN GILEAD AND BASHAN, ETC. 



SGI 




ferent parts of the town, in one of which Burckhardt ob- 
served a peculiarity of structure met with in other places, 
the stones being cut so 
as to dovetail and fit very 
closely. The streets were 
all originally paved. The 
magnificent vestibules of the palace, with its spacious halls, 
and the noble porticoes of the temples, and the splendid 
columns, were lost upon the two poor Druse famihes at 
one lime, and five or six at another, its only inhabitants, 
who were occupied in the cultivation of a few tobacco 
fields.* 

Many hewn and sculptured blocks of stone, evidently the 
fragments of former edifices, are scattered along the road 
leadmg from the S.W. to the ruins of Shobha. The walls, 
about four miles in circumference, are in many places per- 
fect, and, together with the loftiness of its public edifices, 
attest the former importance of the city. Eight gates, of 
three arches each, lead through streets of ruined habita- 
tions, the pavement of which is perfect. Near the centre 
of the city, four massy cubical structures, built with square 
stones, and quite solid, formed a sort of square, supposed 
seats for statues. A large crescent-shaped edifice, with 
several niches in the front, bears the name of the palace, 
and is, or was, the residence of the sheik. Near it stands 
another large edifice, built with massy stones, with a spa- 
cious gate : its interior consists of a double range of arch- 
ed chambers, one above the other, but is so encumbered 
with ruins that the lower range is choked up as high as the 
capitals of the columns which support the arches. The 
walls of other large buildings yet remain. A semicircular 
wall ten feet thick, with nine arched entrances, encloses a 
theatre in good preservation, built of hewn stone, and encir- 
cled by a double row of vaulted chambers. Five or six 
arches, forty feet high, are the most conspicuous remains 
of an aqueduct, which extended for two miles, and termi- 
nated at a public building, once a magnificent bath. It con- 
tains vaulted entrances and spacious rooms, one of which 
is seventy feet by thirty, another sixty by twenty-four, 
height twenty-seven feet eight inches, both arched with 
lava mortar and other light materials, which have fallen in. 
Attached to it were three circular buildings, twenty-nine 

* Burckhardt, p. 83-86. Robinson's Trav., vol. ii., p. 153-155. 



262 



RUINS IN GILEAD AND BASHAN, ETC. 



feet in diameter, covered with a dome. All the walls, 
some of which are 12 feet thick, are built of large square 
stones, and so easily does it admit of renovation, that the 
roofs of some of the chambers were recently entire. One of 
the rooms in the bath would have contained all the inhabi- 
tants of Shobba. From the terrace of one of its houses Mr. 
Buckingham took the bearings of four " uninhabited towns,''* 
all lying within the estimated distance of six miles.* 

The ruins of Draa, or Edrei, famous in the Israelitish an- 
nals, cover a space of two miles and a half in circumference. 
At the entrance of the town is a well-built bridge of five 
arches, in perfect preservation. A reservoir, lined with 
stone, in the hollow of the mountain, 160 yards by 65 wide, 
and 20 deep, and, besides other ruins of minor importance, 
including a large building with a cupola, an immense rec- 
tangular edifice, 133 feet long by 96 broad, with a double- 
curved colonnade all round, betoken no mean ancient city. 
"It is now (1816) entirely deserted, and the inhabitants 
have taken refuge in Ghirbee."t 

While many ruined or deserted towns, whose names never 
had a place in extant records, show how imperfect was ev- 
ery ancient testimony concerning them, cities, on the other 
hand, which came into the view of the historian, and which 
ancient geographers could not overlook, have not only been 
given over to oblivion for ages, but have sunk into such ob- 
scurity, that, in searching for ruins the most worthy of no- 
tice, they would be passed over in silence, were it not for 
the redeeming virtue of their ancient fame. 

Mezareib, supposed to occupy the site of Ashteroth, the 
royal city of Og, king of Bashan, is the first station of the 
Hadj route from Damascus, and can now boast only a sin- 
gle castle, with nothing but its naked walls, in which pro- 
visions are deposited for the pilgrims. Near it stands a cas- 
tle, around which are many ruins of ancient buildings. J 

The ruined town of 0?n Keis is supposed by Seetzen to 
be the representative of Gadara, and by Buckingham and 
Burckhardt, of Gamala : towns too famous, from the great 
slaughters there in the last Jewish war. Heaps of wrought 
stones now cover the summit of the hill on which it stood. 
The remains of two large theatres show that in later ages 

* Buckingham, p. 257-261. Burckhardt, p. 70-73. Mr. Robinson, p. 146-150. 
t Buckingham, p. 168. Robinson, p. 167, 168. 
t Burckhardt, p. 241. Robinson, p. 214, 215. 



RUINS IN GILEAD AND BASHAN, ETC. 263 



it was a city given to pleasure. A vast quantity of shafts 
and columns lie along a once colonnaded street like that of 
Gerasa. Nothing is at present standing, but there are zm- 
mense heaps of cut stones, columns, &c., dispersed over the 
plain. The walls of the ancient city are still easily discern- 
ible ; within them the pavement of the city is very perfect, 
the traces of chariot wheels are still marked in the stones. 
The testimony of one traveller is followed by that of anoth- 
er. " We found not a single inhabitant," says Burckhardt. 
" There are no inhabitants," says Buckingham.* 

The ruins of AMI, Ahila, another of the cities of the De- 
capolis, seems to have nothing now worthy of diverting the 
traveller from his course in pursuing his way to more re- 
markable and attractive ruins. It is said that neither build- 
ings nor columns remain standing, but there are fragments 
of columns of a very large size. 

Ruins abound on the north as well as on the south of the 
Jarmock, which is doubtless the Hieromax of the Greeks, 
and now bears the name of Sheirat-el-Mandhour. Abila is 
near its northern bank ; and the district of Jaulan, anciently 
Gaulonitis, lies to the north of that stream, immediately on 
the east of the Lake Tiberias. 

The only inhabited village on the east side of the lake is 
Kherhet Szammera, with some ancient buildings. Its site 
seems to correspond with that of the ancient Hippos, one of 
the chief cities of the Decapolis.f 

Between the Cape of Tiberias and the village of Feik is 
an insulated hill, having extensive ruins of buildings, walls, 
and columns on the top. They are, perhaps, says Burck- 
hardt, the remains of the ancient town of Regaba, or Argob4 

Half an hour from Feik is a heap of ruins called Radjam- 
el-Abhar. At three quarters of an hour distant is the ruin- 
ed village El-Aal, on the side of the Wady Semak, which 
empties itself into the lake near the ruined city of Medjeife- 
ra, on the other side of the wady. About half an hour dis- 
tant from it is the ruined city Kaszr Berdoweil (a castle of 
Baldwin) ; about two hours and a quarter from Feik are the- 
ruins of an extensive city, Kliastein.^ 

The ruins of towns thus overspread the country, whether 
on the east of the Lake of Tiberias, or of the Jordan, or far- 



* Buckingham's Travels in Palestine, p. 418, &c. Burckhardt, p. 270-273. Rob- 
inson, p. 211, 212. Irby and Manples, p. 297. 

t Burckhardt, p. 278, 279- ' % Ibid. ^ Ibid., p 281, 



264 



RCINS IN GILEAD AND BASHAN, ETC. 



ther east in the Haouran, from south to north, or throughout 
the intermediate wide territory once covered with the cities 
of the plain. 

Towards the north of the Haouran, and in the Ledja, ru- 
ined or deserted towns are not less frequent. To say, as 
previously, that from the top of a house several ruined or 
deserted towns may be seen within the compass of a few 
miles, may forcibly convey some idea of their number, but 
cannot impart any adequate conception of their past, their 
present, and prospective state. 

That land of many cities has now become a land of mere 
villages or tents. Of its villages Ezra is one of the most 
considerable, containing, or that twelve years ago contained, 
about two hundred families, Turks, Druses, and Greek 
Christians. " Ezra was once a flourishing city. Its ruins 
are between three and four miles in circumference. The 
present inhabitants continue to live in the ancient buildings, 
which, in consequence of the strength and solidity of their 
walls, are for the greater part in complete preservation. They 
are built of stone, as are all the houses of the villages of the 
Haouran and Djebel Haouran, as well as of those in the des- 
ert beyond Bozrah. In many places are two or three arched 
chambers, one above the other, forming so many stories. 
This substantial mode of building prevails also in most of 
the public edifices remaining in the Haouran. To complete 
the durability of these structures, most of the doors were an- 
ciently of stone, and of these many are still remaining ; they 
turn upon hinges worked out of the stone, and are about 
four inches thick, and seldom higher than four feet, though I 
met with some nine feet in height."* 

Mr. Buckingham describes one of these houses at Ezra, 
which he entered and examined, and which was " unoccu- 
pied," or without man, though no part of it was destroyed, or 
even materially injured. The front exhibited the singular 
kind of masonry before described, the stones being inter- 
locked within each other by a kind of dovetailing, and thus 
very strongly united ivithout cement, with small windows 
both of the square and circular form, both in the same range. 
The central room of this house was large and lofty, and on 
each side of it was a wing, separated from the central roojn 
by open arcades at equal distances from the sides and from 
each other. The east wing appeared to have been the 

* Burckhardt. p. 57, 58. 



RUINS IN GILEAD AND BASHAN, ETC. 265 



kitchen, as in it were seen two large fireplaces in the stone 
wall, with hearths, as in the farmhouses in England, and a 
large earthen vase, half buried in the centre of the floor, and 
capable of containing at least a hogshead of water, with 
small recesses, like cupboards, around the walls. This 
room was low, being not more than a foot above a tall man's 
height ; but the stone ceiling was as smooth as planks of 
wood, as well as the ends of the stones on which the massy 
beams that formed this roof and ceiling rested. In the cen- 
tre of it was sculptured a wreath, the ends fastened with rib- 
ands, and a fanciful design within it, all executed in a style 
that proved it to be beyond all question Roman. In the op- 
posite, or western wing, were other low rooms ; and before 
the house was a flight of stone steps, projecting from the 
wall, and unsupported except by the end, imbedded in origi- 
nal masonry, leading up to the terrace of the dwelling. In 
front of the whole was an open paved court, and beyond 
this, stables with stalls and troughs, all hewn out of stone, 
for camels, oxen, mules,"* &;c. 

Of the most considerable ruins which, in general, have 
best resisted the destructive hand of time, the walls of most 
are yet erect ; and there are the remains of a range of hous- 
es which, to judge from their size and solidity, seem to have 
been palaces. In the midst of the present inhabited part of 
the town are the remains of a large quadrangular edifice, the 
roof of which consisted of thirteen rows of arches, five in 
each, parallel to each other, of which three now remain. 
The centre has fallen, roof, columns, and all. It was evi- 
dently used as a place for Christian worship, subsequently 
converted into a mosque, and recently abandoned. Adjoin- 
ing it is a square tower about fifty feet high : similar struc- 
tures are frequently seen in the Druse villages. On the 
south side of the village stands a square edifice, dedicated 
to St. George, measuring ninety feet each way, with a sem- 
icircular projection of the eastern side, which contained the 
altar. The vaulted roof, of modern construction, is support- 
ed by eight square columns in the centre of the quadrangle. f 

From the terrace of a house in Ezra, Mr. Buckingham 
took the bearings of eight towns within the distance of eight 
miles, five of which were deserted.\ At nearly the same 
distance to the northeast, a hill is covered with the ruins of 



* Bucking-ham, p. 277, 278. 
X Buckingham, .p. 279. 



t Mr. Robinson's Trav,, vol. ii., p. 138. 

z 



266 



RUINS IN GILEAD AND BASHAN, ETC. 



the ancient city of Keratha, of which the foundations alone 
remain entire. 

Different routes from Ezra to Damascus give redoubled 
evidence that the land on every side continues to be over- 
spread with ruined or deserted cities. 

At Mahadjee, about two hours north of Ezra, where Mr. 
Bucidngham took from a house-top the bearing of ten desert- 
ed towns within twelve miles, the previous accounts which 
he had heard of the district of Ledjah being full of ruined 
towns and cities containing the remains of large edifices and 
innumerable inscriptions like those at Bozrah, Soueida, and 
Gunnawat, were confirmed by many persons, who all united 
in the same testimony, and to whom that district was famil- 
iarly known. Leaving Mahadjee, ho saw in half an hour 
the large town of Ikteehy, about four miles on the left ; in 
half an hour more he came in a line with Geryh, a town 
■with two castles, which lay about half a mile on the left ; 
and at the same time the town of Gherhet-e-Wali lay on 
the right three miles off, and Buseer and El Ghoffy about one 
mile distant, all within the stony district of Ledjah, all large, 
and all deserted and without inhabitants."* 

Burckhardt, leaving the same place by a more easterly 
route, reached in two hours the village of Khabet, and in one 
hour from thence he passed the two ruined cities Zebair and 
Zebir, close to each other. Little more than another hour 
brought him to the ruined village Djedel ; and in a like in- 
terval he reached Dhaini, containing about three hundred 
houses, most of which are still in good preservation. There 
is a large building, whose gate is ornamented with sculp- 
tured vine-leaves and grapes like those at Kanouat. Each 
house appears to have had its cistern, and there are many 
also in the immediate vicinity of the town, formed by exca- 
vations in the rock. At half an hour's distance is another 
ruined place, Deir Dhami.f 

In passing and repassing the same places at the short in- 
terval of two years, Burckhardt marked the rapid progress 
of desolation and desertion. 

In 1810, Shaara was a well-peopled village, inhabited by 
a hundred Druse and Christian families, many of whom were 
engaged in the manufacture of saltpetre and gunpowder. Of 
the former article, the sheik of the village sent yearly to Da- 
mascus one hundred cantars.J In 1 8 12 it was deserted 

* Buckingham, p. 292. t Burckhardt, p. 110, 111. t Ibid., p. 114* 



RUINS IN GILEAD AND BASHAN, ETC. 26? 



without an inhabitant. Shaara was once a considerable 
city, built on both sides of a valley ; it has several large 
structures solidly built, now deserted. In the upper town 
is an ancient edifice, thirty-six feet by forty, with arches 
resting upon columns, now converted into a mosque. Near 
it is a tower forty feet high. Most of the houses of the 
town are in good preservation. The walls, the rafters of 
the roofs, and the doors, are all of hewn stone. The tracks 
of ancient wheels in the pavement, as in many cities of the 
Haouran, are everywhere apparent. We did not meet, says 
Mr. Robinson in 1830, with a single inhabitant.* 

In like manner, the ruined village of Beirit, which was 
inhabited in 1810, was in 1812 abandoned. The Haouran 
peasants wander from one village to another ; in all of them 
they find commodious habitations in the ancient houses ; a 
camel transports their family and baggage ; and, as they are 
not tied to any particular spot by private landed property or 
plantations, and find everywhere large tracts to cultivate, they 
feel no repugnance at quitting the place of their birth. In 
one hour we passed Seleim, which in 1810 was inhabited 
by a few poor Druses, but is now abandoned. Here are the 
ruins of a temple, built with much smaller stones than any 
I had observed in the construction of buildinss of a similar 
size in the Haouran .f 

Distant an hour and a half from Shaara is Missema, a ru- 
ined town of three miles in circuit. The principal ruin in 
the town is a small elegant temple in tolerable preservation. 
The approach to it is over a broad paved area fifty-two feet 
deep. Four Corinthian columris stand in the centre and 
supported the roof, which, formed with light materials, has 
fallen since it was visited by Burckhardt. On each side of 
the entrance was a niche. Projecting from the bottom of 
each of the side walls are four pedestals for busts or statues. 
The centre niche at the northern end is beautifully turned 
in the shape of a shell. The signs of idolatry remain ; but, 
beautiful as the temple is, the idolaters are gone. Missp.ma 
has no inhabitant ; we met, says Burckhardt, with only a few 
workmen digging the saline earth. We wandered over the 
ruins, says Mr. Robinson, in search of an inhabitant, but we 
found ihe place completely abandoned. East of iMissema are 
no inhabited villages, but the Lochf contains several in ruins. | 

* Burckhardt, p. 221, 222. 

t Ibid., p. 114, 212. Mr. Robinson's Trav., vol. ii., p. 134-139. 
X Burckhardt, p. 115-118. Robinson, p. 130-131. 



268 



RijlNS m GILEAD AND BASHAN, ETGi 



According to the testimony of a recent traveller, depopula- 
tion and desolation seem to have progressively increased 
since Burckhardt and Buckingham explored the Haouran 
and adjoining regions. Mr. Elliot, who passed along its 
northwestern boundary, states that Noioa, the ancient Ne\^e, 
like Sanamein, and several other towns and villages in the 
road, is a heap of ruins. Es-szanamein (the two idols) was 
a considerable village, with several ancient buildings and 
towns, when Burckhardt passed by it.* The surviving ru- 
ins indicate the former existence of a large town. " Popu- 
lation seem to have decreased from thousands to hundreds, 
and from hundreds to decades : what were once cities of 
considerable magnitude are now wretched villages, and large 
towns have not a single tenant to perpetuate the memory of 
their name."t " From Nowa to Feik the road crosses a 
vast plain destitute of cultivation and inhabitants. Nothing 
is seen but the ruins of tenanlless villages and towns scat- 
tered in every direction, with multitudes of hawks and herons 
occupying the spots deserted by man."| 

In the region over which we have already passed, some 
proof has been adduced, and some illustration given, that 
many cities of the land of Israel are desolate without inhab- 
itant, and the houses without man. 

In the lists of Arabic names of places in Palestine and the 
adjoining regions by Mr. Eli Smith, appended to the third 
volume of his and Dr. Robinson's Researches, there are the 
names of one hundred and fifty-six places in ruins or desert- 
ed in the Haouran and El-Lidjah ; eighty-one in Batania or 
Bashan ; eighty-six in Ajlun ; and one hundred and twenty- 
three in the Belkah ; or in all, as arranged and named, four 
hundred and forty-six in the countries east of the Jordan. 

Haouran is a land — far more than all others that are, or, 
perhaps, ever were on earth — of cities that are forsaken or 
deserted, though not ruined, and of houses still standing by 
hundreds, but without men. A picture of this is undesignedly 
given in Mr. Buckingham's Travels ainong the Arab Tribes. 
It is entitled only, Caravan in the Plains of the Haouran, 
It consists of camels as if passing through the desert ; but 
in the back-ground the thick-set cities may be seen, as three 
or four times the number may sometimes be counted from a 
single spot. (See Plate.) 

* Burckhardt, p. 55. t Elliot's Trav., p. 320, 325. t Ibid., p. 327. 



NATURAL FERTILITY OF THE COUNTRIES, ETC. 269 



CHAPTER IX. 

NATURAL FERTILITY OF THE COUNTRIES EAST OF THE DEAD 

SEA AND OF THE JORDAN. 

To break in a little upon the sad and monotonous descrip- 
tion of desolate or deserted cities, it may be well, before pass- 
ing that river, which was consecrated more by the baptism of 
Jesus than by the miraculous passage of the Israelites, even 
though it dared not then to wet the soles of their feet, to look 
on the country beyond Jordan, in order to see if there be any 
lingering beauty there, even a faint trace of what the land of 
Gilead and of Bashan was, or if there be yet any subslance 
in it sufficient, as of old, to sustain many of the thousands 
of Israel. 

In vain, in the highest sense, would we look for balm in 
Gilead or fruit in Bashan, while yet there is no physician 
there, and while the covenanted and only rightful inheritors 
of the land are vet wanderers throughout the world, as the 
inhabitants of their own land are wanderers in ilieir patrimo- 
nial territories ; but, anticipating the time when the Holy 
One of Israel shall fulfil his word, and bring his people to 
the land of Gilead and Bashan, and feed them there, and 
their soul shall there be satisfied, we may interrogate the 
land by another category than that of Volney, and ask wheth- 
er, while many cities might be raised from their ruins and 
others be repaired to dwell in, it could repay cultivation now, 
and yield such fruit to Israel as to merit at last the choice 
which at first was made of it. 

In the sneering language of Voltaire, it might be account- 
ed " a goodly land" by those who had wandered forty years 
in the wilderness ! And were the question now put to kin- 
dred scoffers, they might say that any land, however poorly 
enriched with nature's bounties, might be the welcome asy- 
lum of a hapless race, who for many ages have had no land 
to dwell in as their own, and who have wandered genera- 
tion after generation without finding a place whereon to rest 
the sole of their feet. 

But it is not thus that our interrogatory is put. Our ene- 
mies being judges, we would raise the question whether, 

Z 2 



270 



NATURAL FERTILITY OF THE COUNTRIES 



when looked at again, that portion of Israel's inheritance over 
which we have glanced is not capable of being what the 
prophetic Scriptures have declared that it shall be — no mean 
or despicable portion of a " goodly heritage," and " everlast- 
ing possession" worthy of being esteemed " the glory of all 
lands." 

In the beginning of the present century, appeals could not 
be made to existing facts ; and Christians held the problem 
unresolved, if not unresolvable, how a land long reckoned 
as a desert, and a blank in every modern map, could have 
r,ustained the multitudinous cities and towns which, accord- 
ing to the historical Scriptures, were once planted there. 
The increase of knowledge* has caused the mystery to cease, 
and to the lack of that alone can it owe its unduly protract- 
ed existence. Rather than that the land should have been 
plenteously tenanted in ancient times, where the most an- 
cient towns assuredly on the face of all the earth are still 
standing, and have in many instances the seeming freshness 
of novelty in the tinge which age has given them, the wonder 
might reasonably arise, how many cities should thus be 
desolate without man, and how hundreds of houses, that 
give good promise of lasting for ages, should, in town 
neighbouring with town, be left ivithout man, without pos- 
sessors, without claimants, without tenants, or any to dwell 
therein, while wandering herdsmen around them have no 
better shelter than a tent, while many walls, and gates, and 
bars in Bashan are as strong as ever, and the palaces, and 
temples, and castles of Ammon are a stable for camels, and 
a couching place for flocks. 

These facts are not without an assignable reason ; for 
the manner in which God has wrought out his judgments 
may be seen. The mode in which his promised blessing 
to Israel shall be accomplished is yet, save as revealed, a 
mystery to man. But the fact that these lands did sustain 
such numerous cities is not less clear than that it could still 
sustain them again, were the tenantless dwellings crowded 
with inhabitants, and all the cities raised from their founda- 
tions, and peopled anew, mithout loalls because of the multi- 
tude of men, even as the Israelites shall dwell in them on 
their return. 

On the extremity of the Dead Sea, Captains Irby and 
Mangles, passing by a route previously mitrodden by any 

* Pan., xii., 4, 



EAST OF THE DEAD SEA AND OF THE JORDAN. 271 



modern traveller, except perhaps Seetzen, entered into a 
very prettily wooded country, with high rushes and marsh- 
es ; on their advancing farther, the variety of bushes and 
wild plants became very great, some of the latter being 
rare and of remarkable appearance, presenting a fine field 
for the botanist. Among the trees and plants were various 
species of the acacia, the dwarf mimosa, the doom, the tam- 
arisk, a plant they had seen in Nubia called the oscar, the 
wild cotton plant, among an infinity of others that they nei- 
ther knew how to name or describe.* The banks of the 
River El-Dara, which waters a beautiful shady ravine, were 
covered in profusion with the palm, acacia, aspen, and 
oleander in full flower and beauty. As they advanced to- 
wards Kerek they found themselves in corn-fields, with cat- 
tle grazing in the valley through which the River Souf Saf- 
fa runs towards the Dead Sea ; the ancient mill-courses are 
still to be seen, but the river itself was hid by the richness 
of the vegetation on its banks, especially the purple olean- 
der in full blossom. t In the narrow valley at the foot of 
the castle hill of Kerek there runs a stream, with a narrow 
line of gardens on its banks, in which they observed olives, 
pomegranates, and figs, with some vegetables. | South- 
ward of Kerek they ascended into a country of downs, with 
verdure so close as to appear almost turf, and with corn- 
fields at intervals. In short, the whole of the plains in this 
quarter, now so deserted, are capable of rich cultivation.^ 

Ghoeyr, immediately south of the Dead Sea, is famous 
for the excellent pasturage produced by its numerous 
springs, and it has, in consequence, become a favourite 
place of encampment for all the Bedouins of Djebal and 
Shera. The borders of the rivulets are overgrown with 
defle and the shrub rethem. The extensive plain near 
Kara consists of a fertile soil. The broad valley called El- 
Bekka is extremely fertile, and is (was) in part cultivated 
by the people of Szalt and the Arabs of the Belkah. The 
Bedouins, from the superiority of its pasturage, have this 
saying, " Thou canst not find a country like the Belkah." 
The beef and mutton of this district are preferable to those 
of all others. The herds of cows, sheep, and goats of the 
Arabs of the Belkah are large, and, wherever they have the 
prospect of being able to secure the harvest against the in- 



* Irby and Mangles' Travels, p. 334, 335. 

* Ibid., p. 362. 



t Ibid., p. 361. 
^ Ibid,, p. 370. 



272 NATURAL FERTILITY OF THE COUNTRIES 



cursions of enemies, they cultivate patches of the best soil 
in their territory. The riv^ulet of Mayn flows through a 
wood of defle-trees, which form a canopy over the rivulet 
impenetrable to the meridian sun.* The red flowers of 
these trees, reflected in the water, gave it the appearance of 
a bed of roses,t &lc. 

" From Jerash to Ammon," says Lord Lindsay, " the 
whole country is one whole pasturage, overspread with the 
flocks and herds of the Bedouins. "J 

The hills that enclose the valley of Azalt are laid out in 
vine-beds on the eastern side of the town. Farther to the 
south the valley becomes more fertile, is well wooded, and 
watered throughout its extent, and capable of sustaining five 
times the population that (in 1816) inhabited the town and 
neighbourhood. " On the summit of a hill near Fahaes the 
wood scenery is beautiful ; and the fresh and full foliage of 
evergreen trees, contrasted with the snowy beds (February) 
out of which their trunks sprung, was at once new and 
striking. The ground, covered with a fine red soil, exhib- 
ited everywhere traces of former cultivation and great fer- 
tility. From Deer-el-Nassara we soon entered a thick for- 
est of large trees, the greatest number of which were ever- 
greens ; one of these, the most numerous of the whole, was 
as tall as English elm, of equal girth to full-grown trees of 
that kind. A variety of trees and shrubs in great abun- 
dance, present every shade of colour and hue, from the 
palest yellow to the deepest green." On advancing far- 
ther, " The country, though bare of wood, presented a great 
extent of fertile soil lying entirely waste, though it was 
equal to any of the very best portions of Galilee and Sama- 
ria, and capable of producing sustenance for a large popu- 
lation." The plain (of Ammon) was covered with fine 
green turf, daisies, and a large scarlet flower in great abun- 
dance, and the soil was extremely rich. Beyond Ammon 
lies " a continued tract of fertile soil capable of the highest 
cultivation. "§ 

The following testimony of Mr. Buckingham concerning 
that country in general, being highly valuable, is extracted 
at length. " We had now arrived at a very elevated part 
of the plain, which had continued fertile throughout the 
whole of the distance that we had yet come from Ammon 

* Burckhardt, p. 362. t Ibid., p. 369. 

t Lord Lindsay's Travels, vol. ii., p. 110. Bucking-ham. 
^ Buckingham's Travels among- the Arab Tribes, p. 60-63. 



EAST OF THE DEAD SEA AND OF THE JORDAN. 273 



to this place, and were still gradually rising as we proceed- 
ed on, when we came to an elevation from which a near 
view opened before us to the southeast, in the direction in 
which we were travelling. This view presented to us, on 
a little lower level, a still more extensive tract of contin- 
ued plain than that over which we had already passed. 
Throughout its whole extent were seen ruined towns in ev- 
ery direction, both before, behind, and on every side of us, 
generally seated on small eminences, all at a short distance 
from each other, and all, as far as we had yet seen, bearing 
evident marks of former opulence and consideration. There 
was not a tree in sight as far as the eye could reach ; but 
my guide, who had been over every part of it, assured me 
that the whole of the plain was covered with the finest soil, 
and capable of being made the most productive corn-land in 
the world. It is true that, for a space of more than thirty 
miles, there did not appear to me a single interruption of 
hill, rock, or wood to impede immediate tillage ; and it is 
certain that the great plain of Esdraelon, so justly celebra- 
ted for its extent and fertility, is inferior in both to this 
plain of Belkah, for so the whole country is called, from the 
mountain of that name, the Pisgah of the Scriptures. Like 
Esdraelon, it appears also to have been once the seat of an 
active and numerous population."* 

The mountainous ranges on both sides of the Jabbok, 
which divides Gilead, seem still to vie with each other in 
beauty. 

Before reaching Azalt from the south, Captains Irby and 
Mangles passed through a richly-wooded and picturesque 
country. Near to Jerash they entered a very picturesque 
country, most beautifully varied with hanging woods, most- 
ly of the vallonia oak, iaurustinus, cedar, common arbutus, 
arbutus andrachne, &c. ; the latter, in some instances, was 
nearly six feet in circumference. At times the grounds had 
all the appearance of a noble park : in short, nothing could 
exceed the beauty of this day's ride : there were some spots 
cultivated with corn. As we advanced, the wood became 
more thick, and at dark we stopped at a small open space 
covered with high grass and weeds. We went out with 
our ouide to a small distance to endeavour to shoot some 
wild boars, which were said to be very numerous there. f 

On first passing the Jordan, opposite to Bisan, they soon 

* Buckingham, p. 85, 86, t Irby and Mangles, p. 474, 476, 477< 



274 



NATURAL FERTILITY OF THE COUNTRIES 



entered on a small plain very thickly set with herbage, and 
particularly the mustard plant, reaching as high as the hor- 
ses' heads. Ascending from hence, they passed throug^i 
occasional hill and vale well wooded, the country gradually 
increasing in beauty. Next day they continued their route 
through the most beautiful woodland scenery, with the gall 
oak, wild olive, arbutus, &c., &c., in great luxuriance, and 
a variety of wild flowers, such as the cyclamen, crimsoa 
anemone, Sic, on a rich soil. 

The road from Adjeloun towards Souf led through a nar- 
row and picturesque valley, which opens at the farther end 
into a plain, where the road passes through a woody, un- 
even country, extremely beautiful. They observed the ar- 
butus of unusual dimensions and great beauty ; one tree was 
about six feet in circumference, and in some instances the 
vallonia oak and arbutus andrachne were growing grafted to- 
gether, probably from the acorn or berry of either having ac- 
cidentally dropped into some crack in the stem of the other, 
and taken root ! A valley northeast of Souf is very beauti- 
fully wooded, having a picturesque stream, its banks cover- 
ed with the oleander.* 

There is such a diversity in the elevation of the plains of 
Syria, that, while that of the Jordan is remarkably low, oth- 
ers may be appropriately designated a table land. 

After passing the Jordan, Mr. Buckingham ascended to 
one plain after another ; and on ascending Jebel Azalt, he 
describes it as " a fine fertile plain, with undulations here 
and there, a rich green turf, abundance of wood, and pines 
nodding on the surrounding eminences. From hence he en- 
joyed a magnificent view, as beautiful in many of its features 
as it was grand in the whole, and extending in every direc- 
tion almost as far as the range of vision."! 

In describing his journey through the mountains of Gile- 
ad, he thus writes : " We had no sooner passed the summit 
of the second range, going down a short distance on its east- 
ern side by a very gentle descent, than we found ourselves 
on plains of nearly as high a level as the mountains or the 
hills themselves, and certainly eight hundred feet, at least, 
above the stream of the Jordan. The character of the coun- 
try, too, was quite difiereTit from anything that I had seen in 
Palestine, from my first landing at Soor to the present mo- 
ment. We were now in a land of extraordinary richness, 

* Irby and Mangles, p. 307, 308, t Buckingham's Travels in Palestine, p. 19, 



EAST OF THE DEAD SEA AND OF THE JORDAN. 275 



abounding with the most beautiful prospects, clothed with 
thick forests, varied with verdant slopes, and possessing ex- 
tensive plains of a fine red soil, now covered with thistles 
as the best proof of its fertility, and yielding in nothing to 
the celebrated plains of Zabulon and Esdraelon, in Galilee 
and Samaria. 

" We continued our way to the northeast through a coun- 
try, the beauty of which so surprised us that we often ask- 
ed each other what were our sensations, as if to ascertain, 
the reality of what we saw, and persuade each other, by 
mutual confessions of our delight, that the picture before us 
was not an optical illusion. The landscape alone, which 
varied at every turn, and gave us new beauties from every 
different point of view, was of itself worth all the pains of 
an excursion to the eastward of Jordan to obtain a sight of ; 
and the park-like scenes that sometimes softened the roman- 
tic wildness of the general character as a whole, reminded 
us of similar spots in less neglected lands."* 

The first part of our route (from Souf to Oom-Keis), says 
Mr. Robinson, " for nearly an hour and a half, lay through 
a thick forest of very fine oak-trees. Under any other cir- 
cumstances, nothing could be more agreeable than our ride 
through it ; but it was notorious for giving shelter to ill-dis- 
posed persons. The country we passed through this day 
was of the most beautiful description, being slightly undu- 
lated, the crests and sides of the hills clothed with the mag- 
nificent oaks, for which this district, the ancient Bashan, is 
still, as of old, justly celebrated. But for my turbaned com- 
panions, and the absence of detached villas, I could frequent- 
ly have thought myself in Europe. At sunset we arrived at 
Favur, where we supped in the sheik's house, the inhabitants 
being all Mussulmen. They seemed ill disposed towards us, 
were suspicious and disobliging. The place where we pass- 
ed the night was a large excavated cavern, dark and dirty, 
and more like a den of thieves than the dwellings of civil- 
ized people."! 

" The whole of the country," says Lord Linsday, " that 
we had yet traversed on the east of the Jordan, from the 
Lake of Tiberias to the Red Sea, and from Oom-Keis to 
Heshbon, is fertile in the extreme, and the woody scenery 
pf-the mountain districts of Belkah and Adjeloun scarcely 

* Buckingham's Travels in Palestine, p. 322. 

t Robinson's Travels in Palestine, vol. ii., p. 209, 211, 



276 NATURAL FERTILITY OF THE COUNTRIES 



to be surpassed in beauty. The soil is so generally fertile as 
to be capable of producing almost everything that is required. 

" The wood-scenery spoken of in such high terms by 
Buckingham, Irby and Mangles, &-c., began to appear about 
a quarter of an hour after leaving Naimi ; trees, thinly scat- 
tered at first, but which soon became numerous ; and the road 
henceforward was extremely pretty, winding over hills, and 
through vales, and narrow rocky ravines overhung with the 
valonidi oak, and other beautiful trees of which I knew uot 
the names. Approaching Jerash (Souf lying considerably 
to the west), the woods had suffered much from fire ; the 
whole mountain side had been burned ; the herbage was quite 
consumed ; many trees had perished in the conflagration ; 
some were standing half alive, half dead, while others had 
quite escaped. Jerash lay before us ; after a steep and rocky 
descent, we reached the bank of a beautiful little stream, 
thickly shaded by tall oleanders, and, passing through hun- 
dreds of sheep and goats watering at it, ascended to the sum- 
mit of a hill in the midst of the ruins,"* &c. 

" Between Aszalt and El-Hussan the scenerv is most love- 
ly. From the western extremity of Mouut Gilead, in an al- 
most continuous descent to the foot of Gebel Adjeloun, ev- 
ery minute introduces you to some new scene of loveliness. 
The path wound through thickets of the most luxuriant 
growth, and of every shade of verdure, frequently overshad- 
owing the road and diffusing a delicious coolness,t &c. Im- 
mediately after crossing the Zerka we rested at a large cave 
formed by overhanging rocks ; the river in front of us, and 
a wild almond-tree near its mouth, which supplied us with 
a welcome addition to some raisins, the best we ever tasted, 
that we had procured at Aszalt. It was oppressively hot in 
this ravine, but delightfully cool again as we ascended Ge- 
bel Adjeloun, through scenery of more grandeur than that of 
Mount Gilead, and to the full as beautiful. After three quar- 
ters of an hour of steep ascent, the valonidis reappeared on 
both sides of a very beautiful ravine, running up into the mount- 
ains — not valonidis only, but it was clothed to the very sum- * 
mit with prickly oaks and olive-trees, tufted among the crags 
— superb oleanders blossoming in the dry bed of a torrent, 
alongside of the road. Views more and more magnificent, 
towards Mount Gilead, opened upon us the higher vye a^s-? 

* Lord Linsdav's TiT^vels. vol. ii., p. 102. 

t Ibid., p. 122,' 123, ■ 



EAST OF THE DEAD SEA AND OF THE JORDAN. 277 



cended ; corn-fields ready for the sickle revealed the vicin- 
ity of a town — Bounna, to wit — which we reached after an 
hour and twenty minutes' ascent ; the olives ceased a little 
beyond it, but arbutuses, firs, ash, prickly oaks, and a spe- 
cies of the valonidi with a larger leaf than the usual sort (per- 
haps the oak of Bashan), succeeded. After two hours and a 
half we reached a beautiful broad terrace of about twenty 
minutes in length, and partly covered with corn, just below 
the highest point of Gebel Adjeloun, towering up most ma- 
jestically on the left, its noble crags almost hidden among 
beautiful trees. From the termination of this plain or terrace, 
we descended, in half an hour, to Zebeen, through noble fir- 
trees, far finer than those of Mount Gilead. The beauty of 
the descent surpassed, if possible, that of the ascent, and the 
northward view was most splendid. But a painter only 
could give an idea of these scenes of beauty and grandeur.* 

" Our next day's route was through very lovely, but quiet- 
er scenery, valleys full of olives, corn-fields reclaimed from 
the forest, and villages. At the bottom of the hill below 
Zebeen we crossed the brook Napalin, shaded by beautiful 
oleanders. A beautiful narrow glen afterward ushered us 
into a broad valley, richly wooded to the summits of the hills 
with noble prickly oaks, a few pine-trees towering over them. 
I saw an occasional degub-iree or arbutus, but the prevailing 
trees were oaks, prickly and broad leaved : it was forest 
scenery of the noblest character — next to that of old Eng- 
land, with which none that I ever saw can stand compari- 
son. On our journey to Jerash by a different route from that 
of Irby and Mangles, Banks, and Buckingham, we wondered 
at the encomiums lavished by those gentlemen on the wood- 
land scenery of these regions ; we now thought that enough 
had scarcely been said in their praise. '*t 

Jebel Adjeloun, extending from the Zerka to the Yarmuk, 
is described by Mr. Eli Smith as presenting " the most 
charming rural scenery that he had seen in Syria. A con- 
tinued forest of noble trees, chiefly of the evergreen oak, 
covers a large part of it ; while the ground beneath is cloth- 
ed with luxuriant grass, which we found a foot or more in 
height, and decked with a rich variety of wild flowers. "J: 

These direct, explicit, and uniformly accordant testimo- 
nies give proof that, notwithstanding all the desolation that 



* Lord Lindsay, p. 125-127. t Ibid., p. 128, 129, 

t Smith, and Robiason, Appendix, vol. iii., p. 162, 

" Aa 



278 NATURAL FERTILITY OF THE COUNTRIES 



has come on an almost dispeopled land, the natural fertility 
of the Belkah is yet unimpaired. Its peculiar excellence 
as a pastoral country is yet as distinguished as ever. It re- 
tains every capability of being vi^hat it was when the Israel- 
ites first entered it ; and though the ignorant and idle Arabs 
leave cisterns, anciently excavated with great labour from 
the rock, useless and dry, rather than expend a light and 
momentary effort in clearing away the rubbish merely to let 
the water flow into them, so richly has Nature endowed the 
land, that even the Bedouins, making its excellence their 
boast, can appreciate the land they do nothing to improve ; 
and every traveller now sees it to be, what the children of 
Reuben and Gad pronounced it at first, " the land is a land 
for cattle." 

Beauty still lingers in Gilead, as if in its own dwelling- 
place, from which it will not depart. Like many other por- 
tions of the land of Israel, ihe wild boar out of the forest 
doth devour it. Like as in other mountains of Israel, the 
prowling robber has caused the wayfaring man to cease, so 
that for preceding ages none have passed through them ; and 
the fear of the wild tenants of the forest, whether men or 
beasts, is an alloy to the pleasure which the native loveli- 
ness of the land imparts to the passing visitant. Where 
ruined cities retain many a sign of ancient luxury, which 
made art the handmaid of pleasure and of ease, the weary 
traveller rests not now beneath a vaulted canopy in a pillar- 
ed mansion, but, from necessity, betakes himself for a 
night's repose to an excavated cave, more like to " a den of 
thieves than to a dwelling of civilized men." 

The plain of the Haouran, as described by Mr. Eli Smith, 
has a gentle undulating surface, is arable throughout, and, 
in general, very fertile. With the rest of the Haouran, it is 
the granary of Damascus. The soil belongs to government, 
and nothing but grain is cultivated. Hardly a tree appears 
anywhere.* 

In many parts of the Haouran, says Burckhardt, I saw 
the most luxuriant wild herbage, through which my horse 
with difficulty made his way. Artificial meadows can 
hardly be finer than these desert fields ; and it is this which 
renders the Haouran so favourite an abode of the Bedouins. 
The peasants of Syria are ignorant of the advantages of 



* Smith and Robinson's Palestine, Appendix, vol. iii., p. 150, 



EAST OF THE DEAD SEA AND OF THE JORDAN. 279 



feeding their cattle with hay : they suffer their superfluous 
grass to wither away.* 

" The peasants of the Haouran are extremely shy," says 
the same inquisitive and intelligent traveller, " in speaking 
of the produce of their land, from an apprehension that the 
stranger's inquiries may lead to new extortions. I have 
reason to believe, however, that in middling years wheat 
yields twenty-five fold; in some parts of the Haouran, this 
year, the barley has yielded fifty-fold, and even in some 
instances eighty. A sheik, who formerly inhabited the 
small village of Boreika, on the southern borders of the 
Ledja, assured me, that from twenty mouds of wheat-seed 
he once obtained thirty gaharas, or one hundred and twen- 
ty fold. Fields watered by rain yield more in proportion 
to the seed sown than those that are artificially watered ; 
this is owing to the seed being sown thinner in the former. 
The Haouran crops are sometimes destroyed by mice, 
though not so frequently as in the neighbourhood of Homs 
and Hamath. Where abundance of water may be conduct- 
ed into the field from neighbouring springs, the soil is again 
sown, after the grain harvest, with vegetables, lentiles, 
pease, sesamums,"f &c. 

The last remark may be kept in the reader's view as 
giving some indication how, in peaceful times, of which 
knowledge shall be the stability, the ploughman shall over- 
take the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth 
seed, I &c. ; but in the present unsettled, oppressive, and 
marauding times, the change accomplished in a single spot 
in a year or two may supply some token of the universal 
and simultaneous transformation which the now desolate 
scene is destined to undergo. 

"When I passed this place (El Merdjan) in 1810," says 
Burckhardt, " 1 found a single Christian family in it ; I now 
found eight or ten families, &c. They had brought the 
fertile soil round El Merdjan into cultivation, and had this 
year sown eight gaharas of wheat and barley, or about a 
hundred and twenty-eight cwt. English. The taxes paid 
by the village amounted to a thousand piasters, or £50 
sterling, besides the tribute extorted by the Bedouins. 

This short extract at once shows how speedily the land 
may be cultivated anew, and how speedily also a grinding 



* Burckhardt, p. 246. 
t Amos, ix., 13. 



t IhidL, p. 294, 297. 
^ Burckhardt, p. 213. 



280 NATURAL FERTILITY OF THE COUNTRIES 



oppression may renew its desolation. Merdjan had indeed, 
when inhabited by a single family, " escaped the rapacious 
hands of the Arabs," and " was picturesquely situated on a 
gentle declivity near the foot of a mountain, and was sur- 
rounded by orchards and poplar-trees.* But as soon as 
ever any portion of the land was cultivated, it escaped no 
longer the extortions of the Arabs, and was subjected, be- 
sides, to a tax of at least £5 for each family ; and the boun- 
ties of Nature could not long survive the rapacity of man. 

The immediate causes of the desolation of so fertile a 
country as the Haouran, and of the depopulation or deser- 
tion of its indestructible cities, are too apparent to escape 
the notice of the observant traveller. The following re- 
marks of Mr. Burckhardt, forced on his notice, expound the 
seeming mystery : " The oppressions of the government on 
one side, and ihose of the Bedouins on the other, have re- 
duced the Fellah of the Haouran to a state little better than 
that of the wandering Arab. Few individuals, either 
among the Druses or Christians, die in the same village in 
which they were born. Families are continually removing 
from one place to another : in the first year of their new 
settlement the sheik acts with moderation towards them ; 
but his vexations becoming in a few years insupportable, 
they fly to some other place where they have heard that 
their brethren are better treated, but they soon find that the 
same system prevails over the whole country. Sometimes 
it is not merely the pecuniary extortion, but the personal 
enmity of the sheik, or of some of the head men of the vil- 
lage, which drives a family from their home, for they are 
always permitted to depart. This continued wandering is 
one of the principal reasons why no village in the Haouran 
has either orchards, or fruit-trees, or gardens for the growth 
of vegetables. ' Shall we sow for strangers?' was the an- 
swer of a Fellah, to whom I once spoke on the subject, 
and who, by the word strangers, meant both the succeeding 
inhabitants and the Arabs who visit the Haouran in the 
spring and summer."! 

It is thus, according to the prophetic word, that Bashan, 
like Carmel, has shaken off, and still shakes off, its fruits. J 
It is thus also, as the Lord hath said, that the inhabitants 
of the land of Israel, as in manifold similar illustrations be- 
sides, eat their bread with carefulness ; and the land is 

* Burckhardt, p. J 10, t Ibid., p. 299, t Isaiah, xxxiii., 9. Ezejc, xii., 19, 



EAST OF THE DEAD SEA AI^D OF THE JORDAN. 281 



desolate from all that was therein, because of the violence 
of all them that dwelt therein. 

According to the late testimony of Mr. Eli Smith, the 
same causes continue in direful operation. " Respecting 
the whole of the Haouran, it is nessessary to observe, that 
the inhabitants so often move from village to village, that the 
fact of a village having been inhabited when we were there 
is no evidence that it is so at the present time."* 

While there are thus obvious causes of the existing des- 
olation, such as would reduce into similar waste any region, 
however fertile naturally, the traveller cannot but contem- 
plate what the Haouran has been. While he looks at the 
richness of the soil, as well as the remains of the cities, so 
these give manifest proof what the Haouran yet may be un- 
der another government than that of Rome. 

" The soil of the great plain of the Haouran consists of a 
fine black earth, of great depth, but apparently, at the pres- 
ent day, very little cultivated. It must have been an agree- 
able and imposing prospect indeed, to those who looked 
down upon its rich productions, at the time the whole was 
brought under culture by the numerous and industrious Ro- 
man colonies that once inhabited these territories — its gold- 
en crops bending submissively under the breezes that cross- 
ed its surface, like the smooth undulations of the wide ocean, 
and, like it, having no other boundary than the horizon itself." 

Beyond the wide-extended plains of the Haouran lies an- 
other Gilead, and again beyond it another Haouran, if not 
also a third, divided from each other by a mountainous range. 
Numerous wadys descend from both sides of Djebel Ha- 
ouran into the adjacent plains. The mountain is in many 
places covered with oaks. In all their villages there, as 
well as in the deep valley of Essoueida, the Druses grow a 
great deal of cotton, and the cultivation of tobacco is general 
over all the mountain. The soil of the uncultivated district 
which skirts its eastern side is of a red colour, and appears 
to be very fertile ; it is said to excel even that of the darker 
soil of the Haouran. The very name of "the great desert" 
east of Zaele, Telloul, from its tels or hillocks, bespeaks its 
ancient populousness.f The ruins of the many cities and 
villages with which it is covered in every direction ; the 
good arable soil which it still retains for the distance of three 

* Robinson and Smith's Palestine, Appendix, vol. iii., p. 150. 
t Burckhardt, p. 77, 94, 105. 

A a2 



282 NATURAL FERTILITY OF THE COUNTRIES 



days' journey eastward ; and the fact, stated by Burckhardt, 
that water is easily found on digging to the depth of three 
or four feet, all tend to show that, desolate as it has become, 
according to His word, the Lord of the whole earth, as the 
God of Israel shall be called, hath formed it, as if in design- 
ed preparation for the final illustration, which it is yet des- 
tined to supply, of the fulness of his bounty and the faithful- 
ness of his Word, when, even as literally as judgments have 
fallen on its desolate plains and ruined and deserted cities, 
the desert, renouncing at last that name forever, shall blos- 
som as the rose, and the little hills of Telloul shall rejoice 
on every side. 

It is full time to adduce the promises of the Lord when 
speculation is begun as to what that land shall be, and as to 
whom it shall belong as possessors. 

At Gheryeh (Kereye), itself a deserted town of five hun- 
dred houses, without an inhabitant, situated on the eastern 
border of the Haouran, Mr. Buckingham, looking from west 
to east, has the following striking reflections on the land all 
arourid. Indebted as the author has already been to his in- 
teresting works, he cannot here forbear from largely renew- 
ing the obligation. 

" The hills seen by us from hence on our right, forming 
this eastern border, were now covered with snow ; and be- 
yond these, again, was another great plain, on a higher lev- 
el to the eastward, said to be in all respects equal to that of 
the Haouran in the fertility of its soil, and the abundant re- 
mains of a numerous population. It is really humiliating to 
see so fine a country in the possession of so barbarous a 
government as that of the Turks, and abandoned, as it were, 
to sterility and desolation. On the mountains and plains of 
these districts of Belkah, Adjeloun, and Haouran, extend- 
ino" from the Dead Sea to the sources of the Jordan north, 
and from the banks of that river to the extreme limits of that 
cultivable land on the east, there would be room for a mill- 
ion of human beings to form a new colony ; and so far from 
doing injury to their surrounding neighbours, they would en- 
rich every country that was on their borders, and form a 
centre from which industry, art, science, and morals might 
extend their influence, and irradiate regions now the prey of 
ignorance, rapine, and devastation. If the ruler of Turkey 
knew his interest well, he would imitate the conduct of Shah 
Abbas the Great of Persia, who brought a colony of Arme- 



EAST OF THE DEAD SEA AND OF THE JORDAN. 283 

nians from Julfa, and planted them near Ispahan, where they 
enriched themselves, and did incalculable benefit to the Per- 
sians also, until they were persecuted by a succeeding gov- 
ernment who pursued a different policy. No part of the 
Turkish dominions could 4)robably be selected, with less 
risk of interfering with the property and rights of others, or 
with more certainty of success, than these districts which I 
have enumerated, where the colonists would find a fertile 
soil, and springs of water capable of being led in any direc- 
tion for irrigation ; towns and houses built ready for their oc- 
cupation ; a delicious climate, and a wide extent of country 
on all sides, for the consumption of their cattle, grain, and 
even manufactures. These impressions were forcibly ob- 
truded on my mind at different periods of my journey, but 
never more strongly than here, upon the borders of the great 
eastern and western plains ; but, however ardently I might 
indulge the desire to see a step so favourable to progressive 
improvement suggested, I had seen too much of Turkish ap- 
athy and ignorance to hope for the period in which such a 
dream of happiness would ever be realized, in my day at 
least."* 

Of the period in which better things than those here sur- 
mised shall come to pass, this is not specially the place to 
speak : of that, more hereafter. The degree of desolation, 
it may at least be said, proves not that the time of renovation 
is distant, but rather that it is near. 

That man were not a lover of his race who could look on 
cities without inhabitants, and houses without man, and on 
fertile plains so wide as seeming to be bounded only by the 
horizon, and so rich that a wretched agriculture could count 
on a twenty-five fold produce and a double harvest, without 
an ardent wish that the cities should be peopled, and the 
land be cultivated, and be filled with virtuous, peaceful, and 
happy men. Such hopes might be blasted by the sight not 
only of the apathy and ignorance of the Turks, but of all that 
is now seen in the land, where the moral debasement is akin 
to the physical ; so that the resuscitation of the Haouran and 
its kindred territories, judging from sight, might well seem 
to be a dream. 

The ruler of Turkey — the wo-bearing mission of whose 
race was not the renovation of any land, but the destruction 
of many — has neither the wisdom nor the power to give 

* Buckingham's Travels among the Arab Tribes, p. 227-229, 



284 NATURAL FERTILITY OF THE COUNTRIES 



new life to any portion of his expiring empire ; but were 
he to transplant, if he could, another alien race to these 
once teeming regions, what fate could await them but that 
of all the uncircumcised or uncovenanted races, whether in 
ancient or in more modern times, who have heretofore oc- 
cupied the land. The Grand Turk has shrunk into a little 
man, and seems for the completion of his destiny to have 
little more to do than to pass through a last and dying strug- 
gle. Alone in all the earth there are towns in his domin- 
ions, chiefly in this region, without men to fill them. The 
prophetic symbol of his empire bears its legible interpreta- 
tion now. The Euphrates is drying up, that the way of the 
kings of the East may be prepared ; and the very inability 
of the sultan to preserve or retain his dominions, is an argu- 
ment, deducing its conclusiveness, as its origin, from Scrip- 
ture, that that time draweth nigh. 

The believer, looking with the eye of faith, can survey 
" the great desert," which lies within the patrimony of Abra- 
ham's seed, as the covenanted gift of Abraham's God, and, 
anticipating in sure hope the glorious day of Israel's redemp- 
tion and final restoration, can see nothing but beauty with- 
out a trace of desolation there, where, looked on as it is, 
nothing else can be seen. The happiness shall then be 
such that it shall indeed seem like a dream. " When the 
Lord turneth again the captivity of Zion, we were like them 
that dream ; then was our mouth filled with laughter, and 
our tongue with singing : then said they among the heathen, 
the Lord hath done great things for them. The Lord hath 
done great things for us, whereof we are glad. Turn again 
our captivity, O Lord, as the streams of the south."* That 
word which has turned defenced cities into ruinous heaps, 
has power, when varied from a curse to a blessing, to re- 
store the cities to dwell in, and to transform the wilderness 
into a fruitful field. 

The cities and the lands of Gilead and Bashan, as well 
as those of Moab and Ammon, were long hid from the 
world, till in these latter days they rise into view, not 
only showing that every word of God that had gone forth 
against them is at last perfect work, but witnessing too, 
as their testimony may now be heard, that they are all 
nearly, if not altogether, ready for the accomplishment of 
other predictions. Had they been known in past centu- 

^ Psalm cxxvi., 1-5, 



EAST OF THE DEAB SEA AND OF THE JORDAN. 285 

ries as in the present day, before the judgments had come 
upon tliem to the uttermost, men might have sought to qual- 
ify a prophecy if not wholly accomplished ; or even, as was 
the practice in earlier ages, they might have renounced the 
literal interpretation, and wrested the Scriptures into some 
imaginary significancy, while the time was not come for the 
word itself to speak, or for the very things to be seen which 
the prophets had declared. And even if these cities and 
regions had been opened to European research long after 
the days of Abulfeda, much testimony would have been 
wanting then which is most abundant now, and men would 
either not have known the sign which the Lord had set up 
to mark the time when Israel's blindness should speedily 
cease, or else they might have looked on the prospective 
abandonment and desertion of so many cities of the land as 
a dream never to be realized, or only to be thought of as a 
reality when a new age of wonders should arise. 

When they shall see these things, they shall know that I am 
the Lord. When the time was come that the predicted des- 
olations were complete, or in the course of rapid completion, 
these things were seen ; the whole scene was disclosed to 
view ; and many ran to and Jro, where none before had trav- 
elled. In this, as in numberless instances besides, knowl- 
edge was increased. Facts were brought to light by which 
the verity of God's word was seen. Cities and plains, 
mountains and valleys, vied with each other in declaring it. 
Babylon, whose site was scarcely known, vied with Petra, 
which had been sought for in vain ; and Chaldea with Edom, 
and Ammon with Moab. Palestine showed itself full of 
judgments as it once was of mercies ; the land of Israel's 
ancient possession was studded with testimonies ; and the 
completion of manifold judgments showed that the cup of 
the Lord's wrath had gone round among all the nations to 
whom by name He sent it. 

But the completion of one series of prophetic judgments, 
true to the very letter, prepares the way for the completion 
of another series of a different order. There is not only a 
growing evidence, or, as Bacon calls it, a germinating ful- 
filment of prophecy, but that germinating process may be 
even seen. While some have borne their ripened fruit, 
others may be looked on in the bud. As in the land of Is- 
rael, the gathering of the harvest may be the preparation for 
the sower j so the judgments that have come upon the land, 



286 NATURAL FERTILITY OF THE COUNTRIES 



thougli Others yet intervene, prepare the way for the bless- 
inos that are to follow after. Cities there are without in- 
habitants and without claimants ; houses there are, number- 
ed by hundreds in single localities, iy/7Aow^ man, open to any 
casual visitants that may choose to enter them. Over a 
large portion of Israel's inheritance, the rights of property 
in houses or in lands are altogether unknown ; the right of 
possession is never challenged, and need not be contested 
where there are empty dwellings ready for occupation, an J 
fertile plains that cry in vain for cultivators. The wander- 
ing Arabs cause the inhahitants to ivander. The grovernment, 
to whom alone all property in the land belongs, has no power 
to protect it ; and the cities and the land, with none that can 
keep the one or cultiv^ate the other, are without possessors, as 
if they pertained to a people that are no longer there. All 
other bonds are broken, all other claims disannulled, but that 
of Israel's everlasting covenant. The time is come when, 
there is room for a million of human beings to form a new 
colony in the country beyond Jordan which was formerly 
partitioned among two tribes and a half of Israel ; and while 
the wandering tribes that traverse the land, and move inces- 
santly from place to place, as if sojourners in a land that is 
not theirs, and dwelling in tents amid cities in which no 
man dwells, the wanderers throughout the world who can 
call no other region theirs, are numbered by millions, and 
one of the fondest schemes of the Jewish mind, not without 
recent attempts to realize it, is that of colonizing the land of 
their fathers. 

This extensive region beyond Jordan, newly restored to 
the notice of the world, begins to be appreciated, and signs 
there are that the time may not be distant that it shall also 
be appropriated by the people to whom the Lord had given 
it. Who that can relish the beauties of nature, or value its 
bounties, could look on the lovely mountains of Gilead, and 
the rich plains of the Haouran, even though they did not 
bear a single consecrated name, without a wish that the 
blessedness of such lands bore some similitude to their fer- 
tility and beauty ? And who that has the faith of Abraham, 
and mourns over the miseries of his expatriated race, does 
not wistfully look for the time when the captivity of Israel 
shall be brought back ; when Dan, ere his own allotment 
be fixed in another portion of the land as rich and lovely, 
shall leap from Bashan, and Benjamin shall possess Gilead ? 



i:AST OF THE DEAD SEA AND OF THE JORDAN. 287 



These lands retain such inherent richness and such natural 
beauty still undefaced by man, that they are worthy of being 
claimed by the Lord of the whole earth as his own. And 
God hath spoken in his holiness, " Gilead is mine, and Ma- 
nasseh is mine."* He has reserved them still for his peo- 
ple Israel, notwithstanding their past unfaithfulness in his 
covenant ; and although He has turned human instrument- 
ality to the execution of his judgments, he has so wrought 
out his purposes, and still kept his covenant in view, that of 
all lands these are the most inviting for a colony, and the 
most free for immediate occupancy ; so that, as is stated, a 
million of men might take possession of them at once, not 
to the detriment, but to the gain of all the regions around. 
Where or when, with even the semblance of truth, could 
this be said of any other country ? or what land besides, 
throughout all the earth, holds forth to myriads of immediate 
settlers such temptations of unappropriated lands, of unoc- 
cupied cities, of empty but habitable houses, of numberless 
fountains, of rich and beauteous mountains, and of fertile 
plains covered with luxuriant pasturage ready for immedi- 
ate tillage ? The hand of the Lord God of Lsrael is assu- 
redly in all this. It is the Lord's doing, and it is marvel- 
lous in our eyes ; and, showing forth his faithfulness, it is 
a token, could any be needed, that He loves Israel still, and 
has his people in remembrance, and will not suffer his prom- 
ises to fail. Who is the Lord but our God ? Hath He 
said, and shall He not do it ? Has He not, according to his 
Word, made this whole land what it is, whether as respects 
the cities and houses that have cast out their inhabitants, 
and the men to whom He has not given them in possession, 
or the uncultivated plains which have passed under his sen- 
tence of desolation, and yet retain their substance 1 And as 
surely as Gilead is the Lord's and Manasseh is His, has He 
not reserved them, and made them ready, whenever the peo- 
ple of his covenant shall be turned to him again, for the ac- 
complishment of his Word which we delight to repeat, " I 
will bring Israel again to his habitation, and he shall feed 
on Carmel and Bashan, and his soul shall be satisfied upon 
Mount Ephraim and Gilead. "f " Let them feed in Bashan 
and Gilead as in the days of old. According to the days 
of thy coming out of the land of Egypt will I show unto him 
marvellous, things. He will turn again, He will have com- 

* Psalm Ix., 7. t Jen, 1., 19. 



288 



RUINS OF CITIES IM JUDEA, EtC* 



passion upon us. Thou wilt perform the truth to Jacob, and 
the mercy to Abraham, which thou hast sworn unto our 
fathers from the days of old."* It has been said that these 
lands may suffice for the occupancy of a million of men. 
Israel is still numbered by millions, but the tribes of Israel 
shall not always bear the name of outcast, and many shall 
yet be added to those that are now known. Gilead alone, 
even with all its surrounding regions, is not a land too rich 
or large for the thousands of Israel that shall yet be assem- 
bled there ; for saith the Lord, " I will bring them into the 
land of Gilead and Lebanon, and place shall not be found 
for them."t 



CHAPTER X. 

RUINS OF CITIES IN JUDEA, ETC. 

There is a contrast strikingly reversed, as drawn by Jo- 
sephus and every modern traveller, between the region on 
the west and the east of the Jordan. Prior to the Jewish 
war, which terminated in the destruction of Jerusalem, the 
region beyond the Jordan was partly desert, and was es- 
teemed less fertile than Judea ; while the latter country was 
universally cultivated and full of cities, and while Samaria 
and Judea were not only everywhere clothed with fruitful 
trees, but were also so exceedingly populous, that two pro- 
vincial towns in the plain of Judah could send forth thirty 
thousand armed men. But, while some portion of the an- 
cient glory of Gilead still lingers there, that of Judea has 
departed, its mountains are desolate, and its cities have 
fallen, though not, like those of Edom, forever. 

The prophetic Scriptures could in two words characterize 
for many ages the separate fate of all the tribes in distin- 
guishing the dispersed of Judah from the outcasts of Israel. 
In like manner, while the cities of Israel beyond the Jordan 
have been either ruined or deserted, many of them being 
dispeopled though not destroyed, the word of the prophet 
now teaches us, in passing the Jordan, to look for the de- 
cayed places of Judah. This one word thus sets them be- 
fore the reader as they are. Among them we are not to 

* Micah, vii., 14, 15, 19, 20. t Zech., x., 10. 



RUINS OF CITIES IN jUDEA, ETC. 



289 



look for " indestructible towns ;" nor do they, in this respect, 
show us anew cities still existing, though without inhabi- 
tant, or houses still standing, though without man. Judea 
has been the scene of sieges and of contests which have 
laid most of its cities even with the ground ; and it has not, 
therefore, such conspicuous ruins, and such forsaken, though 
not fallen cities, as those with which the Haouran is cov- 
ered, unlike to any other land on earth. But deserted vil- 
lages and ancient towns utterly abandoned, the region on 
the west of Jordan can also show ; and built up again as its 
cities shall be, we may warrantably look there also, as 
throughout all the land, for the ready materials of a speedy 
reconstruction, and see if over that land too there be, as in 
the ruined towns beyond the Jordan, hewn stones in abun- 
dance where cities stood, waiting for the time when the 
hands of strangers shall huild up the walls that there have 
fallen, and when it shall be said to the cities of Judah, Be- 
hold your King. 

A more summary view may here suffice, as decayed cities 
have less to tell. 

Jesus preached the Gospel from city to city throughout 
the lands of Galilee and Judea. He sent forth his apostles 
and seventy disciples to declare throughout them all that 
the kingdom of God was come nigh unto them. They 
preached in vain. But not in vain did they shake off the 
dust of their feet as a testimony against them. Not Chora- 
zin and Bethsaida alone, but many others besides, sharing 
in the sin of not believing in Jesus, have shared the same 
fate. Though they were exalted unto heaven, and rivalled 
each other in their greatness, and the boast could be made 
of them that they were excelled by none, yet their pride, 
their impenitence, and unbelief, have brought them down to 
hell, to death, or to the grave ; and they exist not now even 
as uninhabited cities, but lie as low in their ruin as they 
were exalted in their pride. 

Immediately before judgment came upon them after the 
crucifixion of Jesus, the country beyond Jordan was marked 
by its inferiority to that on its western side. Now the con- 
trast is reversed ; and marking this apparently strange diver- 
sity or reversal of the relative richness now, it may not be 
meet, while in the midst of a land that everywhere bears 
marks of moral retribution, to overlook the fact, that when 
Jesus, shortly before his crucifixion, went beyond Jordan, 

B B 



290 RUINS OF CITIES IN JUDEA, ETC. 



•when in Jewry they sought to kill him, many believed on 
him there, while the cities of Judah rejected him, and be was 
crucified beyond the walls of Jerusalem. Gilead, though 
blighted, is still glorious in its beauty, while the mountains, 
and plains, and cities of Judah, like the places around Je- 
rusalem, are utterly waste, and the very land that would not 
hear the messenger of the Lord, but slew the Lord of glory, 
has been smitten with a heavy curse. 

The ruined cities of the Haouran cannot be passed un- 
seen ; and even when, like Kanouat, they are hid by trees 
or fallen minarets, columns or towers tell where they lie. 
But YSiZed from their foundations (funditus eversi) as the for- 
tresses, towns, and villages of the Jews were, on their final 
extirpation from Judea by the Emperor Adrian, the hriers, 
and thorns, and thistles, and rank weeds that have come upon 
the land, suflice to obliterate the vestiges of cities which lack 
the memorial of a solitary wall. Ruinous heaps overgrown 
with herbage are often undistinguishable from the ground ; 
and while the traveller from a far land looks in vain all around 
for the fragment of a ruin as the vestige of a city, where they 
once were as numerous as on the other side of the Jordan, 
some broken ground, far rougher than the rest, may fix his 
wandering eye on a place of safety for his horse's hoofs, 
and the sight may teach him that he looked not low enough, 
and that cities of Judah are still trodden down of the Gen- 
tiles, and seldom meet the view, except where the ruins of 
churches indicate a later judgment. 

About thirty miles directly south of Gaza, as discovered 
and described by Dr. Robinson and Mr. Smith, the ruins of 
Ahdeh are doubtless the remains of Ehoda, simply mention- 
ed by Ptolemy. The ruins of some walls, once enclosures 
of fields and gardens, and of others built across the water- 
course, to regulate the once fertilizing stream ; the ruins of 
a square tower of hewn stone ; the foundations of houses ; 
and many hewn stones and fragments of pottery strewn 
around, at the distance of half a mile from the chief ruins 
and near to an excavated quarry, forming a deep cavern sup- 
ported by pillars, the resort of multitudes of pigeons, are 
now the approaches to the ruined Ehoda. The southern 
base and slope of the hill on which the city stood were cov- 
ered with the ruins of buildings of hewn stone. The prin- 
cipal ruins on the top of the hill are those of a Greek church 
and fortress, the latter having proved unable to save an 



RUINS OF CITIES IN JUDEA, ETC. 



291 



idolatrous temple or itself from destruction. The church is 
about one hundred and twenty feet in length, and of propor- 
tional breadth. The walls are still in great part standing, 
built of hewn stone, apparently from the neighbouring quar- 
ry, and of good workmanship. The arched recess, or place 
of the altar, was yet visible, with a similar recess on each 
side, quite entire. In the western part was a side chapel, 
with two or three smaller rooms. The space within the 
walls was strewn with broken columns and entablatures. 
The castle or fortress, built of hewn stone, was more than 
four hundred feet in length, had a fine arched portal, a very 
deep cistern and well about one hundred feet deep, sixty of 
which were sunk in the solid rock, while the top, for about 
forty feet, is walled up with hewn stones in an uncommonly 
good style of masonry. On the opposite side of the town 
are also ruins of buildings and walls of fields.* " The race," 
says Dr. Robinson, " that dwelt here have perished, and their 
works now look abroad in loneliness and silence over the 
mighty waste." But they shall not so look forever. 

The ruins of Ruhaibeh, of which the ancient name is un- 
known, and of Elusa, mentioned by Ptolemy, lie in a line 
between Ehoda and Beerslieba. The former, which the 
same travellers " stumbled on by accident,"! consists of con- 
fused heaps of stones, which entirely and thickly cover a 
level track of ten or twelve acres in extent , one large mass 
of stones appears to be the remains of a church, from the 
broken columns and fragments strewed around. Once, as 
they judged upon the spot, this must have been a city of not 
less than 12,000 or 15,000 inhabitants; now it is a perfect 
field of ruins, a scene of unutterable desolation. The ruins 
of Elusa, which was once an episcopal city, cover a some- 
what larger space, with room enough for a population of 
15,000 or 20,000 souls.| The city is more decayed than 
that of Ruhaiheli. At Beersheba, the low hills north of the 
wells are covered with ruins of former habitations spread 
over a space half a mile in length. § 

At the village of Dhoheriyeh, itself being in ruins, and an 
assemblage of stone hovels, the remains of a square tower 
denote the site of a castle or fortress. " that would seem to 
have been one of the small fortresses which once apparent- 
ly existed all along the southern border of Palestine. "|| 



* Smith aad Robinson, vol. i., p. 285-287. 
t Ibid., p. 297. ^ Ibid,, p. 301. 



t Ibid., p. 290. 
II Ibid., p. 311. 



292 



RUINS OF CITIES IN JUDEA, ETC; 



The ruins of Kiirmul, Carmel of Judah, lie around the 
iiead and along the two sides of a valley of some width and 
depth. The main ruins consist chiefly of the foundations 
and broken walls of dwellings and other edifices scattered 
in every direction, and thrown together in mournful confu- 
sion and desolation. The castle is still a remarkable ruin, 
its walls nearly ten feet thick, the stones bevelled, and, though 
the upper arch is gone, the remaining height is about thirty 
feet. Near it are the foundations of a round tower and of a 
small church. The remains of a large church stand apart 
from other ruins ; the whole length of the foundations is 156 
feet, the building having consisted apparently of two parts. 
At about the distance of half a mile are the ruins of another 
large church.* 

The ruins of Tekoa, on the top of a hill, consist chiefly of 
the foundations of houses built of squared stones, some of 
which are bevelled, the ruins of a Greek church, and of a 
large castle. On another summit near them, as seen by 
Pococke, were the ruins of a large church, dedicated, as he 
states, to St. Pantalione.t They cover a considerable ex- 
tent. J 

The ruins of Beit-Jihrin, also first discovered and descri- 
bed by Dr. Robinson and Mr. Smith, and identified by them 
with the ancient Eleutheropolis, consist of the remains of a 
fortress of immense strength, in the midst of an irregular 
rounded enclosure, encompassed by a very ancient and 
strong wall, formed of large squared stones uncemented, 
along which is a row of ancient massive vaults, with five 
rounded arches. These are now covered by the accumu- 
lated rubbish, yet some of them still serve as dwellings for 
the inhabitants. The northern wall of this exterior enclo- 
sure, representing the diameter from east to west, measured 
600 feet, and the other diameter cannot be much less. It 
is doubtless of Roman origin. In the midst of this area 
stands an irregular castle. The gate was shut up, and the 
court within, where not covered with stone and rubbish, 
was planted with tobacco. The interior of the castle was 
full of arches and vaults ; and the people told us of a church 
with pictures in the southern part, now shut up, and, indeed, 
buried beneath the ruins. The area of the enclosure out- 
side of the castle is partly occupied by the materials of an- 

* Robinson and Smith, vol. ii., p. 196-198. 

t Ibid., p. 182. Pococke, p. 41. t Irhy and Mangles, p. 341. 



RUINS OF CITIES IN JUDEA, ETC. 



293 



cient walls and structures. The ancient town appears to 
have extended for some distance along the open valley to- 
wards the northeast. About a mile from the village are the 
ruins of an ancient church, bearing the name of St. Ann. 
Of the church only the eastern end is standing, including 
the niches of the great altar and that of a side chapel, built 
of large stones of strong and beautifid masonry.* " The 
ruins," says Dr. Robinson, " are sufficiently important to 
v/arrant the conclusion that they are those of Eleutheropolis 
— ruins worthy of the Roman name and of a powerful ciiy."t 

Ramlah in better days must have been three or four miles 
in circumference. " Great ruins of houses," which a cen- 
tury ago were conspicuous remnants of a considerable town, 
are less noticeable now ; and a Greek church, then used as 
a mosque, is now a " beautiful ruin." A tower standing in 
the midst of a large quadrangular enclosure is ascended by 
a flight of one hundred and twenty-five stone steps, f but has 
failed to defend the monastery to which it was attached. 

The celebrated church of St. George at Ludd is still a 
noble ruin. The edifice was of hewn stone both within and 
without, and of excellent masonry. The stones in the mod- 
ern buildings of the poor villages show that it had been a 
place of some consequence.^ 

The region eastward of Gaza is called the country of 
Hasy, and is filled with deserted sites and ruined villages, 
not one of them being inhabited. 1| West of Hebron, many 
of the hills are marked by ruins, showing that this tract of 
country was once thickly inhabited.^ In the hill-country 
of Judea, on the way from Jerusalem to Gaza, most of the 
villages are deserted or in ruins. The country is full of the 
sites of ruins and villages, some inhabited and some de- 
serted, at least for portions of the year.** 

Ram,, the ancient Ramah of Benjamin, is a miserable vil- 
lage with few houses, and these now in summer mostly de- 
serted. There are here large squared stones, and also col- 
umns scattered about the fields, indicating an ancient place 
of some importance. ft 

The houses of the village of El Jib seemed to be chiefly 
rooms in old massive ruins, which have fallen down in ev- 
ery direction. One large massive building still remains, 



* Robinson and Smith, vol. ii., p. 355-357. 
X Pococke, p. 4. Mr. Robinson, vol. i., p. 29. 
II Robinson and Smith, vol. ii., p. 385. 
** Ibid,, vol, li., p. 338, 339. 

B B 2 



t Ibid., p. 359. 

§ Pococke, p. 4. 

IT Ibid., vol. iii., p. 6. 

tt Ibid., vol. ii., p. 315. 



294 



RUINS OF CITIES IN JUDEAj ETC. 



perhaps a former castle or tower of strength. The lower 
rooms are vaulted with round arches of hewn stone, fitted to- 
gether with great exactness. The stones outside are large, 
and the whole appearance is that of antiquity.* A fine 
fountain of water, in a cave excavated from the base of a 
high rock, forms a large subterranean reservoir ; and not 
far below it are the remains of another, about 100 feet in 
length by 100 in breadth, both awaiting their time to quench 
the thirst of Israelites again, when they shall turn from the 
broken cistern of their own righteousness, that can hold no 
water, to the fountain of living waters — the righteousness, 
like their father Abraham's, that is of faith. 

When the Lord discomfited the five kings of the Ammon- 
ites before Israel, and slew them with a great slaughter at 
Gibeon, the Israelites chased them along the way that goeth 
to Bethhoron.^ In a later age, both the cities of that name 
were numbered with Tadmor and Baalath, among those 
which Solomon built. He built Bethhoron the upper and 
Bethhoron the nether, fenced cities, with walls, gates, and 
bars.;j: At Beit-Urel-Tahta (the lower), the foundations of 
large stones indicate an ancient site ; and at Beit-Urel-Foka 
(the upper), situated on an eminence on the very brow of 
the mountain, the small village exhibited traces of ancient 
walls and foundations. " There can be no question," says 
Dr. Robinson, " that they indicate the upper and nether 
Bethhoron ;"§ and though once fenced cities, with their 
walls, gates, and bars, they rank now with those which shall 
be raised up from their foundations. 

Samaria lay between Judea and Galilee, and was the 
chief seat of the tribes of Israel. Prophecy, as the writer 
has elsewhere shown, detailed its history as now it may be 
read, and marked all its features as they are still to be seen, 
and disposed of all its stones, whether they be cast down 
into the bottom of the valley, or gathered into heaps on the 
summit of the hill. Its foundations have been discovered, 
but they shall not be forever bare. The Lord shall bring 
again the captivity of Samaria, and she and her daughters 
shall return to their former estate.^ Jesus came to the lost 
sheep of the house of Israel ; and his disciples entered not 
into the cities of the Samaritans, who, though dwelling in 
them, were aliens from the commonwealth of Israel. But 



* Robinson and Smith, vol. ii., p. 136. t Josh., x., 10. t 2 Chron., viii., 5. 
^ Robinson and Smith, vol. ii., p. 59, 60, || Hzek., xvi., 53, 55, 



EUINS OF CITIES IN JUDEA, ETC* 



295 



the voice of tlie Lord shall be heard and obeyed. Turn 
again, O virgin of Israel, turn again to these thy cities* 
Though hid from view and searched for in vain, this v^rord 
has power to evoke them all from their ruins. Napolous, 
the ancient Sichar, whose inhabitants came out to see and 
to hear Jesus, and many of whom believed on him, and near 
to which, anciently Shechem, Abraham first pitched his tent 
in the land of Canaan, is the only surviving city standing 
between Ebal and Gerizzim — the mountains from which the 
curses and the blessings were respectively pronounced — 
as if it still waited, having seen, as it heard, the former, to 
see finally, also, the full realization of the latter, and the 
completion of the covenant which God made with Abraham. 

The ruins of Scythopolis (Bysan, Bethsan) are of con- 
siderable extent ; and the town, built along the banks of a 
rivulet, and in the villages formed by its several branches, 
must have been nearly three miles in circuit."! But some 
trace has been left of the luxury of which that archiepisco- 
pal city was the scene. The theatre is still distinct ; and 
in it alone, throughout their extensive travels. Captains Irby 
and Mangles saw those oval recesses for brass sounding 
tubes, mentioned by Vitruvius, which even in his day very 
few theatres contained. The scene is now changed, and 
the sounds are different. In one of the dormitories they 
found twenty-four sculls and other bones ; and in one of the 
sculls a viper was basking, with his body twisted between 
the eyes, presenting a good subject for the moralizer4 In 
regard to the human occupants of " the principal city of the 
Decapolis," " Bysan," says Dr. Richardson, " is just what 
a nest of ruffians might be expected to be, a collection of 
the most miserable hovels, containing about 200 inhabitants 
— the veriest miscreants of that miscreant quarter of the 
world, I never in my life saw the human countenance so 
bedevilled as in the fiend-like looks of the inhabitants of 
Bysan. "^ Such now are its inhabitants, and such the end 
of Scythopolis. The land is yet given to the wicked of the 
earth for a prey, and mourns because of the iniquity of those 
that dwell therein. " One generation of vipers," in human 
form, has succeeded to another, till, in the chief scenes of 
godless pleasures, where the perfection of art ministered 
to the gratification of the senses, vipers literally nestle in 



* Jer., xxxi., 21. 

t Irby and Mangles, p. 302. 



t Burckhardt, p. 343. 

^ Dr. Richardson, ii., p. 421, 422. 



296 



RUINS OF CITIES IN JUDEA, ETC. 



sculls. ButBysan shall be Bethsan again. Its site is cov- 
ered with large heaps of hewn stones ; and when a king 
shall reign in righteousness, they shall be built up again, 
and other walls shall be raised in the place of those which 
have fallen, and on which the victorious Philistines fastened 
the dead body of the first king of Israel,* who was faithless 
in the covenant, and obeyed not the command of the Lord. 
The prostrate columns of Corinthian architecture may then 
be raised in memorial of the evil days that shall have passed 
avv^ay, never to return. 

Tiberias, previous to the earthquake of 1837, was fortified 
by a thick and well-built wall, twenty feet in height, with a 
high parapet, and flanked by twenty round towers in excel- 
lent condition, and was considered as a place almost impreg- 
nable to Syrian soldiers. f To the south, the margin of the 
lake is covered with the ruins of the former city. Heaps 
of stones, and some ruined walls and foundations of houses, 
a few columns, the ruins of a large, thick wall or mole, with 
a few columns of gray granite lying in the sea, and midway 
between the town and the hot baths, where the springs flow as 
copiously and as warm as ever, one prostrate column of gray 
granite, and the fragments of a column of red Egyptian gran- 
ite, are the only remains of antiquity exposed to the view of 
the passing traveller in traversing the ruins of the ancient 
city ; other columns, as conjectured by Burckhardt, proba- 
bly lie on the surface, hid among the high grass with which 
the plain is covered.^ Besides these ruins, which stretch 
half an hour along the seashore, and extend about three hun- 
dred yards inland, there are other remains of ancient habi- 
tations on the north side of the hill, and some thick walls, 
the remnant of ancient fortifications. The ruins of the mod- 
ern city may now be added to those of the old. " The pros- 
trate walls of the town now present little more than heaps 
of ruins; and not a finger," says Dr. Robinson, "has yet 
been raised to build them up. In some places they are still 
standing, though with breaches ; but from every quarter foot- 
steps led over the ruins into the city. The castle also has 
suffered greatly. Very many of the houses were destroyed 
by the same earthquake which prostrated Saphet and Tyre ; 
few remained without injury. Several of the minarets were 
thrown down, but a slender one of wood had escaped. We 
entered the town directly from our tent, and made our way 

* 1 Samuel, xxxi., 10. t Burckhardt, p. 320, 321. t Ibid., p, 328, 32? 



RUINS OF CITIES IN JUDEA, ETC. 



297 



through the streets in the midst of the sad desolation."* 
(See Plate.) 

The castle and city of Saphed were long a stronghold of 
the Crusaders ; and the possession of it by the Sultan of 
Egypt, when, pressed by famine, it was surrendered by the 
Templars, gav^e him the command of all Galilee. At the 
instigation of Benedict, bishop of Marseilles, who bequeath- 
ed to it his whole fortune, the castle was rebuilt by the Tem- 
plars. In the beginning of last century, though its condi- 
tion was then so ruinous that its ancient figure could scarce- 
ly be determined, the multitude of ruins and the extent of its 
circuit, nearly a mile and a half, gave manifest proof that it 
had been formerly a very strong fortification. " In order to 
form some idea of this fortification in its present state," says 
Van Egmont, " imagine a lofty mountain, and on its summit 
a round castle with walls of an incredible thickness, with a 
corridor, or covered passage, extending round the walls and 
ascended by a winding staircase. The thickness of the 
wall and of the corridor together was twenty of my paces. 
The whole was of hewn stone, and some of them eight or 
nine spans in length. The castle was anciently surrounded 
by stupendous works, moats, bulwarks, tov/ers, &c. The 
stones of a large structure in the form of a dome are of as- 
tonishing magnitude. The inside is full of niches, near 
each of which is a small shell. An open colonnade sur- 
rounds the building, and, like the rest of the structure, is 
very massive and compact. From the top of the dome we 
had the finest prospect that can be imagined, extending over 
the city of Saphet, and the numerous circumjacent villages 
and hamlets, and the adjoining country, which is everywhere 
well cultivated."! When visited by Burckhardt, Saphed 
was a neatly-built town. The castle appeared to have un- 
dergone a thorough repair in the course of the last century ; 
it had a good wall, and was surrounded by a broad ditch. 
The town was surrounded by large olive plantations and vine- 
yards. The garrison cultivated a part of the neighbouring 
lands.;}; But here, as elsewhere, the fortress has ceased 
from Ephraim. The same earthquake which overthrew Ti- 
berias, levelled Saphed with the ground. Syria has for 
many ages been the scene of desolations wrought by the 
hands of man. But war is the messenger of the Lord, and 



I * Robinson and Smith, iii., p. 253, 254. 
j Van Ilgmont and Heymanj yo].. ji,, p, 43-46= 



t Burckhardt, p. 317» 



298 KUINS OF CITIES IN JUDEA, ETC, 



warriors the executioners of his will. Before them, as hu- 
man instruments, bulwarks may stand long unshaken by all 
their power. But when the Lord speaks the earth trembles, 
and at his word the strongest cities and castles, deemed im- 
pregnable, fall like the grass before the scythe of the mower. 
Often has the word of the Lord passed over many cities in 
Syria, and sometimes scarcely one has escaped. How terri- 
ble these judgments were which brought the cities to the dust, 
and made the defenced city a ruin, some idea may be formed 
from the description of the Rev. Mr. Thomson, of Beyrout, 
who was accompanied by Mr. Caiman, and who, in Chris- 
tian mercy, visited the surviving inhabitants soon after the 
fearful catastrophe. " All anticipations were utterly confound- 
ed when the reality burst upon our sight. Up to this mo- 
ment I had refused to credit the accounts ; but one frightful 
glance convinced me that it was not in the power of language 
to overstate such a ruin. Suffice it to say, that this great 
town, which seemed to me like a beehive four years ago, is 
now no more. Saphed was, but is not. The Jewish por- 
tion, containing a population of five or six thousand, was 
built round, and upon a very steep mountain ; so steep, in- 
deed, is the hill, and so compactly built was the town, that 
the roofs of the lower houses formed the streets of the ones 
above, thus rising like a stairway one above another ; and 
thus, when the tremendous shock dashed every house to the 
ground, the first fell upon the second, the second upon the 
third, that upon the next, and so on to the end ; and this is 
the true cause of the almost unprecedented destruction of 
life. Some of the lower houses are covered to a great depth 
with the ruins of many others which were above them."^' 
Most of the houses were prostrated in a few moments ; thou- 
sands of the inhabitants of Saphed (chiefly Jews) v/ere bu- 
ried beneath the ruins ; the castle was utterly thrown down, 
and the lower houses were covered with the accumulated 
masses of ruins. f Fallen as the cities of Israel are, and 
raised up again as they shall be according to the same Di- 
vine word, and numerous as were those which earthquakes 
prostrated when existing in their prime, Saphed may supply 
an illustration how accumulated ruins are storehouses of 
hewn stones, all ready for reconstruction. 

The castle of Baneas, so famous in the history of the Cru- 

* Robinson and Smith, Appendix, vol. iii., p. 471-475, 
t Narrative, p. 366, 



EUINS OF CITIES IN JUDEA, ETC. 



299 



saders, is now " in complete ruins," but was once a very- 
strong fortress. Its whole circumference is twenty-five min- 
utes (or upward of a mile). It is surrounded by a wall ten 
feet thick, flanked with numerous round towers, built with 
great blocks of stone, each about two feet square. Within 
the precincts of the castle are ruins of many private habita- 
tions. There are four wells in the castle, one more than 
twenty feet square, walled in with a vaulted roof at least 
twenty-five feet high, and full of water in a dry season at 
the end of summer. Ov^er the source of the River Panias is 
a perpendicular rock, in which are several niches ; in one, 
the base of the statue is still visible. Round the source are 
a number of hewn stones. There is a well-built bridge near 
the ruins of an ancient town, which extend from it about a 
mile. No walls remain, hui great quantities of stone and ar- 
chitectural fragments are scattered about. Near it are the 
ruins of another strong castle, of which several of the tow- 
ers are standing. It bears the date of 600 and years 

(of the Hedjira), or of the thirteenth century ;* so long after 
the destruction of them all was foretold, were fortresses built 
in the land of Israel. 

The ruins of Bostra (not Bozrah), near Baneas, consist 
of the foundations of private habitations, built of moderately- 
sized squared stones. In the upper city are the remnants of 
several buildings. A heap of hewn stones of larger dimen- 
sions than the rest indicates the site of some public build- 
ings. The circuit of one division of the town is rather less, 
and the other rather more, than a quarter of an hour.f 

At the end of an hour and a half from Baneas, Burckhardt 
reached Ain Hazouri, about an hour to the north of which 
are " the ruins of a city called HazourVX — the ancient Ra- 
zor, once " the head of the kingdoms'''' of Canaan.^ But the 
word of the Lord, in after ages, went forth against it,|| and 
it has been desolate for many generations. Though its name 
is retained in its ruins, they have not hitherto been visited or 
described. Brochard, who marked their position, eight 
leagues from Tyre on the east, corresponding to that assigned 
them by the renowned modern traveller of the same name, 
states that to " his day its ruins attested the ancient magnifi- 
cence of the city."^ 

In the naturally rich region which surrounds the streams 



* Burckhardt, p, 36-41. 
(I Jer., xlix , ^3, 



t Ibid., p. 41. t Ibid., p. 44. ^ Josh., jr., la 

1 Brocard, Orbis Novus, p. 262. 



300 



RUINS OP CITIES IN JUDEA, ETC. 



which flow into Lake Houle, the waters of Merom, towns 
were numerous in ancient times, as are ruins now. The 
ioiDns of Ccesarea Philippi* into which Jesus went, were, 
but are not. Some of the friends of the Sheik of Baneas 
enumerated to Burckhardt the names of seventeen ruinsf in 
the neighbourhood north of Baneas. 

Returning to the seacoast, having previously noticed the 
ruins of Askelon, we may look for the ruins of other cities 
along the shores of Syria. 

We have seen how, at the close of the eleventh century, 
Ccesarea for a time withstood the crusading armies, and on 
its capture enriched them ail. It was built by Herod the 
Great, in honour of the emperor of the world, and was a 
magnificent city, worthy of the imperial name it bore. It 
was adorned with most splendid palaces and stately edi- 
fices, built of excellent materials, and admirably construct- 
ed. " The city," says Josephus, " was built of white stone, 
and was adorned both with the most splendid palaces and 
private dwellings. But its greatest and most laborious struc- 
ture was a harbour perfectly safe, in extent equal to the Pi- 
raeum (at Athens), and having within it two stations for ships. 
This work was the more wonderful, from there being no ma- 
terials at hand for its construction, which had to be brought 
from a distance, and at great expense. "| It formed one of 
the most wonderful works of antiquity, built as it was of 
stones fifty feet long, eighteen broad, and nine in depth, 
which were placed twenty fathoms deep. The mole built 
by the seaside was two hundred feet wide, with towers of 
sufficient strength to break the force of the severest tempest. 
A quay encircled the whole haven, and around it was a 
street of polished stone. Of similar, but still nobler struc- 
ture, was a temple, so lofty as to be visible at a distance 
from the sea, in which was a statue to Ceesar, and another 
to Rome. Among other works were a theatre and amphi- 
theatre of great dimensions ; and no less labour was bestow- 
ed on subterranean vaults. The city, in its grandeur, was 
given up to pleasure ; and its games or festivals, famous 
throughout the empire, were renewed every fifth year. 
Erected at incredible expense and labour, in the short space 

* Mark, viii., 45. 

t The ruins of Dara, Bokatha, Bassisa, A^ouba, Afkerdouya, Hauratha (this was 
described as being- of great extent, with nn;^ny w^lls and ai'ches still remaining). En- 
zouby, Hauarit, Kleile, Eintaiie, Misherefe, Zar, Katloube, Kseire, Kasoua, Beit-el- 
BereX,~~Bur(:hhardVs Trav.Jp. jtd. ■ i Josephus, torn, i., p, 604. Ant,, xv., ^ 



RUINS OF CITIES IN JUDEA, ETC. 



301 



of twelve years, its glory, like its games, soon ranked with 
that of the first cities of the empire, till its king, arrayed in 
royal apparel, and seated on his throne — it may be in the 
noble oratory which, as we have seen, flowed in an after 
age with the blood of the citizens — addressed the people in 
such lofty strains, that they shouted. It is the voice of a god, 
and not of a man. The worms of which he was eaten, ere 
by the law of nature they would have had their prey, gave 
the lie to such blasphemous adulation. The fall of the proud 
monarch was an emblem of that of the proud city ; and its 
fall is emblematical of that of all Caesarean, as well as all 
papal pride and power. The magnificent city of Caisarea, 
the noblest monument of Herod's greatness, the capital of a 
kingdom, and afterward of a province, the metropolitan see 
of nineteen bishoprics, is so buried in its ruins, that its pal- 
aces, temples, churches, forum, theatre, amphitheatre, walls, 
moles, all its polished houses, and many of its mighty tow- 
ers, now lie in undistinguishable masses of undefinable form, 
as the accompanying plate, more than words, may testify — 
over all of which indiscriminately, covered with thistles or 
thorns and rank weeds, wild boars, lynxes, hyenas, and 
wolves have their abode ; while, wholly untenanted as it is 
by man, vipers — of which, as of " snakes and scorpions, 
there are many"* — may there bask in sculls, as in the sis- 
ter archiepiscopal city of Scythopolis. 

In the capital of Palestine, as in many cities of Syria, 
heaps rising above the ordinary level of the ground, all 
raised by ruins, distinguish the sites of public buildings 
from those of private dwellings. " There are three rising 
grounds," says Pococke, " at the bottom of the port ; that in 
the middle might be the site of the temple ; that to the north 
might be the forum ; and the hill to the south, the theatre ; 
behind which, where stood the amphitheatre, the rising 
ground, I suppose, was made by the ruins of it."t "The 
mounds," says Mr. Buckingham, '* in which Pococke thought 
he could recognise the sites of the tower of Drusus, Caesar's 
temple, &c., are mere masses of undefinable form, and with- 
out a feature that could assist to distinouish the one from 
the other. "J A century ago the separate heaps may have 
been somewhat more distinguishable than now. But Po- 
cocke states that it was impossibly then to go to any part 

* Mr. Robinson's Travels, vol, i., p. 190. t Pococke, p. 5?, 

± Buckinghiim's Palestine, p. 137. 

^ ' g q 



302 RUINS OF CITIES IN JUDEA, ETC. 



where there was not a beaten path — beaten as a track by 
beasts, perhaps — the ground being much overgrown with 
briers and thistles : the place was a remarkable resort for 
wild boars, which abound also in the neighbouring plain ; 
and when the Mohammedans kill them, they leave their car- 
casses on the spot."* " The plain at present," says Dr. 
Clarke, " is inhabited only by jackals and beasts of prey. 
As we were becalmed during the night, we heard the cries 
of these animals until daybreak. "f Such now is Caesarea, 
though " perhaps there has not been, in the history of the 
world, an example of any city that in so short a space of 
time rose to such an extraordinary height of splendour. "J 
It was in vain that Herod built it as an enduring monument 
of his glory ; but it v^^as not in vain that an apostle of Jesus, 
imprisoned there for two years, shook off the dust of his feet 
as he passed, not to return, through the gates of Caesarea. 

In the sixteenth century, RauwolfT, who passed by it, spoke 
of the large and broad streets, in which scarcely any one 
was to be seen, and of the important and stately antiquities 
that still remained there. § Two aqueducts, one carried on 
a wall thirteen feet thick, another built on arches, which 
was a rusticated work ; the remains of walls of small hewn 
stones, said to have been built by the Crusaders ; the ruins 
of a very strong castle, full of fragments of fine marble pil- 
lars ; great ruins of arched houses ; and the " ruins of a large 
church, which probably was the cathedral of the archbish- 
op," are all mentioned by Pococke as the most distinguish- 
able remains. 11 Still along the shore are the remains of a 
building, with fine Roman arches yet perfect, and of anoth- 
er pile, with five or six columns fallen into the sea. Mr. 
Buckingham saw fragments of white marble highly polish- 
ed, some of the white stone (^XevKrjg nerpag) mentioned by 
Josephus,ir of which the edifices were built ; but the princi- 
pal remains are the ruins of a large and well-built fort of ex- 
cellent workmanship, with many pyramidal bastions, the 
whole terminating in an edifice on a rocky base surrounded 
by enormous blocks of rocks, probably, as Mr, Buckingham 
remarks, the tower of Drnsus, which was built on the mole 
itself, where this ruin stands, having braved the raging fury 
of two thousand winters, and still defying the storms of 



* Pococke, p. 59. t Clarke's Travels, vol. ii., p. 645. 

t) Ray's Collection of Travels, p. 26G. 

IT Joseplius, torn, i., p. 694. Ant., xv,, 9, 



t Ibid. 
II p. 59. 



IIUINS OF CXTIES IN JUDEA, ETC. 



303 



ocean to effect its total demolition. The port appears rath- 
er to have been destroyed by a besieging force than to have 
fallen gradually to decay.* 

The ruins of Cassarea lie in heaps, over which briers and 
thistles are spread, and, as it were, wild beasts and nox- 
ious reptiles watch. And if the ruins of Askelon were no 
sooner touched, and the sand partially cleared av/ay, with 
the intention of building a new town and harbour from the 
ancient materials, than many interesting remains were ex- 
posed to view, what may not Cassarea, with its streets of 
polished stones and marble buildings, display ? The case is 
not problematical ; for, according to the testimony of Dr. 
Clarke, and the confession of the man v/ho had done the 
work, " in the garden of Djezzar's palace (then Pasha of 
Acre), leading to his summer apartments, we saw some pil- 
lars of yellow variegated marble of extraordinary beauty ; 
but these, he informed us, he had procured from the ruins 
of CoBsarea, together with almost all the marble used in the 
decoration of his very sumptuous mosque. A beautiful 
fountain of white marble, close to the entrance of his palace, 
has also been constructed with materials from these ruins. "f 
" They have been resorted to as a quarry wherever building 
materials have been required. At Acre, Djezzar Pasha 
brought from hence the columns of rare and beautiful mar- 
ble, as well as the other ornaments of his palace, bath, fount- 
ain, and mosque.":]: 

It may thus begin to be seen that the labour expended on 
one of the most princely of cities, the tine materials of which 
it was constructed, the polished stones of which elegant 
building's forming streets were built, the masses of hevvn 
stone which were once the palaces, the cathedral, the 
churches, the oratory, the courts, the walls, &c., shall 
not be forever lost. Even because buried they are best 
preserved ; and while the tombs of Petra look as if fresh 
from the chisel, the work of that instrument havino in agres 
past been perfected on the covered stones of Csesarea, the 
hands of strangers, to whom the labour pertains, shall have 
nothing else to do than to build up its walls into habitations 
for many more, it may well be, of the children of Israel than 
the ten thousand Jews whom the other citizens slew in the 
day of the downfall of Judah. But when the cities of Ju- 

* Buckingham's Travels, p. 135-137. t Clarke's Travels, vol. ii., p. 382. 

1 ILwd., p. 645, 



304 RUINS OF CITIES IN JQDEA, ETC, 

I 

dah and of Israel shall be built again, and the Gospel be be- 
lieved in all its simplicity, as Paul and Peter preached it 
in the city of Ccesarea, no statue shall be raised, as of old, 
to Rome or to Caesar, to heathen gods or to popish saints ; 
and when the Lord will make the judges of his people just, 
there shall not be a Festus to tremble at the preaching of 
righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, nor an 
Agrippa on earth, who shall not be more than almost a 
Christian, nor a Herod, to whom shall be given the glory 
which pertains to the Lord alone ; but all the houses of 
Caesarea, or those formed from its stones, shall be like unto 
that of Cornelius the centurion, the first Gentile to whom 
the Gospel was sent, and who believed in God with all his 
house ; and where the repose of the traveller is now broken 
by the cry of wild beasts, songs of praise shall be heard in 
the dwellings of the righteous. 

On the coast between Caesarea and Carmel are the exten- 
sive ruins of the ancient Dora, so fallen that these possess 
nothing of interest, and the village of Atklite, constructed 
from the ruins of a more ancient city. The old walls which 
surround it are those of CasLrum peregrinorim. Another 
Avail encloses a considerable space of ground now uninhab- 
ited. The walls and windows of a fine Gothic hall, and 
many similar ruins, bespeak the former character and con- 
sequence of the place. " From the commodiousness of the 
bay, the extent of the quarries in the neighbourhood, the 
fine plains near it, though now but partly cultivated, it would 
seem that the place was formerly of much importance, and 
that the neighbourhood, though now very thinly inhabited, 
was once populous."* 

A.kka, the ancient Aeon, Acre, or Ptolemais, fell to the lot 
of the tribe of Asher,f though the Israelites, faithless in 
the covenant, could not drive out its inhabitants. It was, 
in the Middle Ages, one of the most renowned of cities, 
from the multitude of slain that fell before its walls. For 
two years it was the contested prize of Christendom. It 
was fortified in the strongest manner with double walls, and 
towers, and fortresses, and adorned with a great hospital 
and castellated fortifications.^ Its fame was renewed in 
modern times, and not a capital in Europe could boast like 
it that the baffled Napoleon retreated from its walls after a 



* Irby and Mangles, p. 190-192. Monro's Travels in Syria, vol. i., p. 62. 
f Judges, i., 31, " ' I ;gophard, p. 86Q, 



RUINS OF CITIES IN JUDEA, ETC. 



305 



desperate and bloody siege of three months. Besieged for 
twice that period in 1834 by Ibrahim Pasha, the shores and 
the high grounds being occupied with batteries to the far- 
thest range, it fell not till " the devastation committed upon 
the domes and minarets of the mosques by the shells and 
round shot were visible from without ; and within, walls 
and houses overthrown gave the place the appearance of a 
heap of ruins."* An illustration was given how a city of 
Syria could be speedily raised from its ruins, and become, 
if needful, a stronghold again. It arose once more from its 
ruins, and with it Mehemet Ali held Syria as his own. The 
last siege, still fresh in the memory of the existing genera- 
tion, is an indication, among many others, that the time at 
length is come when, compared with the lingering events of 
earlier days, a sliort loork will the Lord do upon the earth. 
In three hours it fell, not from the ordinary effects of any 
bombardment, however terrible. As if commissioned by 
the Lord of Hosts, who is the Lord of Israel, like the arrow 
from a bow drawn at a venture, which brought Ahab down, 
a bomb penetrated a magazine of powder stored up for de- 
fence, and raised the arsenal in the air, as if to show that 
the time was come that the la^si fortress in Palestine should 
cease^ and strewed it stone by stone upon the ground, as if 
the times too were not distant when the hands of strangers 
should find other work, and build up the ruined walls in an- 
other form. Taken but as yesterday by the British, it was 
given to the Turks ! whose character must be changed ere 
the work of reparation be done by them. What next ? it 
may be asked. Let the answer in effect be seen. And it 
may be that the time will no longer tarry till the world be 
a witness that it was not in vain that Acre fell to the lot of 
a tribe of Israel. 

In passing from Acre to Tyre, Captains Irby and Man- 
gles, about three hours before reaching the latter, observed 
some ruins on a small eminence, which, on a narrower in- 
spection, presented to their view the remains of a large city, 
and the ruins of a temple in a most dilapidated state. Only 
two columns, much defaced, are standing, the ruined mon- 
uments of a decayed city. From thence the remains of the 
great ancient paved way to Tyre are distinctly traceable, 
and between it and Sidon they " passed through the ruins of 
five or six large cities, now mere rubbish" or utterly desolate. 

* Monro, vol. i., p. 53. 

G c 3 



J 



306 RUINS OF CITIES IN JUDEA, ETC. 

Of the hundreds of cities or towns that anciently flourish- 
ed in Palestine, whether under the Israelites or the Romans, 
not one has been left to give now an example or illustration 
of what they were. Time after time they have been laid 
waste, and many of them are desolate without an inhab- 
itant. Where miserable villages take the place and the 
name of large towns, and where towns still exist where 
cities stood, nothing more can be said than the prophet fore- 
told in declaring the work of the Lord concerning them. 
Thus saith the Lord God, T/ie ciiy that went out hy a thou- 
sand shall leave a hundred, and that which went out hy a hun- 
dred shall leave ten, to the house of Israel* 

The Jews, as a nation, rejected the Messiah ; and while 
the Gospel has been preached for many ages among the 
Gentiles, that a people might be brought from among them 
to the Lord, Jerusalem has been trodden down of the Gen- 
tiles, and the cities of Judah have been laid waste. In de- 
nouncing judgments against the cities of Judah, the prophet 
charged them with the sin of idolatry : According to the 
number of thy cities are thy gods, O Judah.] That they 
might not fall for the want of a message of salvation, if they 
would have heard it, Jesus not only went throughout them, 
but sent his twelve apostles, and afterward seventy disci- 
ples, to preach the Gospel in them all. But there were not 
believers enough to save the cities, and they fell, though the 
kingdom of God had come nigh unto them all. An apostate 
church, in after ages, could not reverse, but brought down 
from heaven the renewal of the judgments. Again and again 
has the fury of the Lord been kindled against the cities of 
Judah, and he has laid them desolate without man and with- 
out beast. But when the curses of the covenant shall pass 
away, and wars forever cease in the land, because the Lord 
shall make a new and everlasting covenant of peace with 
the house of Judah as with the house of Israel, then shall 
his oft-repeated word of promise be fulfilled, God will save 
Zion, and will build the cities of Judah, that they might dwell 
there, and have it in possession. The seed also of his ser- 
vants shall inherit it, and they that love his name shall dwell 
therein.'^. All the goodliness of man — all the goodliness, as 
we have seen, of the goodliest of cities — is as the flower of 
the field; the grass withereth, the fiower fadeth, because the 
Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it. And in Palestine the 

* Amos, v., 3. t Jer,, ii., 28. t Psalm Ixix., 35, 36. 



KUINS IN THE NORTH OF SYPvIA, ETC, 307 



sight is common of withered grass and faded flowers cov- 
ering ruined cities, ruined because the Spirit of the Lord 
has blown also upon them. The grass witheretJi, the jiower 
fadeth, as Scripture repeats the saying ; hut, as it adds, the 
word of our God shall stand forever. And in the next words 
and same breath, the voice heard by the prophet cried, " O 
Zion, that bringest good tidings, get thee up into the high 
mountain ; O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings, lift up 
thy voice with strength ; lift it up, be not afraid ; say unto the 
cities of Judah, behold your God."* " I have blotted out, as 
a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins ; re- 
turn unto me, for I have redeemed thee. Sing, O ye heavens, 
for the Lord hath done it. Thus saith the Lord, that con- 
firmeth the word of his servants, that saith to Jerusalem, thou 
shah be inhabited, and to the cities of Judah, ye shall 
BE BUILT, and I will raise up the decayed places (or wastes) 
thereof ^'f Israel shall be saved of the Lord with an ever- 
lasting salvation. I In the cities of the mountains, in the cit- 
ies of the vale, in the cities of the south, and in the land of 
Benjamin, and in the places about Jerusalem, and in the cit- 
ies of Judah, shall the flocks pass under the hands of him 
that telleth them, saith the Lord. Behold, the days come, 
saith the Lord, that I will perform that good thing which I 
have promised unto the house of Israel and to the house of 
Judah. In those days and at that time, I will cause the 
branch of righteousness to grow up unto David ; and he 
shall execute judgment and righteousness in the land. In 
those days Judah shall be saved. § 



CHAPTER XL 

RUINS IN THE NORTH OF SYRIA, BEYOND THE ANCIENT 

BORDERS OF ISRAEL. 

The iniquity of the Israelites in departing from the living 
God, hemmed them within narrow limits while they dwelt in 
the land, and finally expelled them from it all ; but there 
was no limit to the curses of the covenant which were to 



* Isa., iL, 8, 9. 
% Jbid., xlv., 17. 



t Ibid., xUr., 23, 26. 
t) Jer.^ xxxiii., 13-J5 



308 



RUINS IN THE NORTH OF SYRIA, 



fall upon the land, while there was no city to be found with- 
in it in which the everlasting covenant was not broken, 
when thousands of churches overspread all the land. On 
the Jinal return of the seed of Jacob to the inheritance given 
them by an everlasting covenant, when they shall no more 
be plucked out of it, their heritage, in all its amplitude, shall 
be theirs, and the face of the land shall be filled with cities. 
They shall enlarge the place of their tent, and shall break 
forth on the right hand and on the left ; and their seed shall 
inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate cities to he inhab- 
ited.'^ Throughout the extent of the land we may thus look 
for ruined cities, in the faith that as assuredly as they have 
fallen they shall be raised again within all the borders of the 
ancient kingdom of Israel, when the blessings of the new 
covenant shall supplant the curses of the old, and the Lord 
shall be glorified in Israel. 

The diminutive territory within which the seed of Israel 
dwelt of old, and possessed as their own, even when redu- 
ced to the land of Judea, sufficed for all the temporary pur- 
poses of the first covenant with Israel under the law ; but 
the new covenant yet to be made with the house of Israel 
and the house of Judah, that the Abrahamic covenant may 
have its full completion, demands ampler scope, as it forbids 
that very much or any land should again remain to be fos- 
sessed, when all the earth shall see that the Lord will not 
suffer his faithfulness to fail. Most imperfect, therefore, 
would be our view, were we not to cast a glance from Sidoii 
to Seleucia, and from the sources of the Jordan to the mouth 
of the Orontes, and from thence to the banks of the Euphra- 
tes, and see whether, in the intermediate widespread terri- 
tories, cities be not ready to rise from their ruins whenever 
the people to whom it pertains shall be brought within the 
bonds of the covenant, and shall be no longer slack to go in 
and possess the land to its farthest borders on every side. 

When Israel shall be the restorer of cities to dwell in, he 
will not seek in vain where cities of the Canaanites stood. 
Each tribe, on the north as well as on the south of the land, 
may well have its towns from the Mediterranean Sea to the 
River of Assyria ; and if the Lord do better to them than at 
the beginning, He will not do worse to Israel when the peo- 
ple shall be all righteous, than He did to the idolatrous Ca- 
naanites or apostate Romans, nor worse to the believing 

* Isa., liv., 8. 



BEYOND THE ANCIENT BORDERS OF ISRAEL. 309 



sons of Isaac when they shall be 'a Messing to all nations, 
than He did to the misbelieving sons of Ishmael when they 
came as a wo for the infliction of his judgments. 

The cities of Phoenicia, which were long renowned 
throughout the world, and which armies of Crusaders at 
first passed unassailed and only reduced after many years, 
have for ages lost their fame, and some of them have only 
recently been recognised, while others have yet to be sought 
for. But when the heritage of Jacob shall be filled with 
cities along the seacoast, against which ^he sword of the 
Lord has been unsheathed from end to end for many gener- 
ations, peaceful dwellings shall arise, and the sound of war 
be heard no more, but the Gospel of peace shall be the creed 
of Israel where fierce Crusaders fouoht in vain. 

ByUus, Esbele, or Jebail, once famous for the temple and 
worship of Adonis, is still " enclosed by a wall of moderate 
height, about a mile and a half in circumference, with square 
towers at intervals. Large vacant spaces appear on every 
side, formerly occupied by houses, and the shops in the ba- 
zar are nearly all shut up."* " Many fragments of fine 
granite columns are lying about in the neighbourhood. Few 
inhabitants remain."! The many heaps of ruins, and the 
fine pillars that are scattered up and down in the gardens 
near the town, show, says Mr. Maundrell, that it was an- 
ciently a place of no mean extent as well as beauty .| 

Botrus (Batrone), before its destruction by the Templars, 
was a very opulent city, and renowned for its celebrated 
wines. § At Pairone, its humble representative, are some 
remains of an old church and monastery of the Middle Ages, 
the only memorials of the episcopal city.jl 

In the territory of Tripoli, some remains are to be seen of 
inland as well as of maritime cities. Near the village of 
Beshiza are the ruins of a small temple, with projecting ba- 
ses for statues. On the ruined walls, the door and its soffit 
are ornamented with beautiful sculptures, not inferior to those 
of Baalbec. The entablature of the portico is perfect. Of 
the four Ionic columns which formed it, three are stand- 
ing, eighteen feet high, and of a single stone. In the midst 
of the building stands a large oak, whose overshadowing 
branches render the ruin highly picturesque.^ 



* Mr. Robinson's Travels, vol. ii., p. 51. 

t Maundrell, p. 45. 

II Maundrell, p. 44. Robinson, p. 53, 



t Burckhardt, p. 180, 
§ Brocard, p. 261. 
If Burckhardt, p. 176. 



310 



RUINS IN THE NORTH OP SYRlA^ 



Ruins bearing the name of Naous form the remains of an 
ancient tovvn. Of two ruined temples, it is said that they 
are worthy the traveller's attention. The labour and art ex- 
pended upon them were not spent that they might be hid so 
long and finally be passed by, all but disregarded. But they 
are worthy of attention ; for, of the smaller one, there still 
stands a ruined wall with two niches, and fragments of col- 
umns three feet in diameter. It is an oblong building com- 
posed of large square stones. The other, which stood in 
an area of sixty paces in length by fifty in breadth, is sur- 
rounded by a wall, of which the foundations and some frag- 
ments remain. The beautiful gate that led to this area is 
still entire ; the two posts, elegantly sculptured, fourteen feet 
high and ten wide, are each, together with the soffit, formed 
of a single stone. The temple within presents nothing but 
a heap of ruins. The ground is covered with Corinthian 
columns, capitals, and friezes. The wall of the area is built 
with large blocks of well-cut stone, some of which are up- 
ward of twelve feet Ions.* 

Archis, or Arka, the capital of the Arkites, and the birth- 
place of Alexander Severus, was, as described by the Arch- 
bishop of Tyre, one of the cities of the province of Phceni- 
cia, near the foot of Lebanon, situated on a strongly-fortified 
hill.f A very fertile plain, five miles broad, lay between it 
ai»d the sea. Of this ancient metropolis of one of the fam- 
ilies of the Canaanites, nothing but ruins remain, though the 
natural beauty of the scene and richness of the fertile plain, 
five miles broad, that intervenes between it and the sea, are as 
great as ever. As described by Dr. Shaw, " It is built over 
against the northern extremity of Lebanon, in a most de- 
lightful situation, having the prospect to the northward of an 
extensive plain, diversified with an infinite variety of castles 
and villages, ponds and ruins. To the westward it sees the 
sun set in the sea, and to the eastward, rise over a long and 
distant chain of mountains. Here, likewise, are not want- 
ing Thebaic columns and rich entablatures to attest the splen- 
dour and politeness it was some time possessed of. The 
citadel was erected on the summit of an adjacent mount, 
which by its situation must have been impregnable in for- 
mer times ; for the mount is in the figure of a cone, in an as- 
cent of fifty or sixty degrees, appearing to have been, not 
the work of nature, but of art. In the deep valley below 

* Burckhardt, p. 173, 174. Mr. Robinson, vol. i., p. 48. t Will. Tyr., p. 737. 



BEYOND THE ANCIENT BORDERS OF ISRAEL. 813 



the city we have a brisk stream more than sufficient for the 
necessities of the plain ; yet it hath been judged more con- 
venient to supply it with water from Mount Lebanon, for 
which purpose they have united the mountain to the city 
by an aqueduct, whose principal arch could not be less than 
a hundred feet in diameter."* The castles, whose variety 
served to diversify the plain, may now, like most of the 
Phoenician cities, be sought for in their ruins. When all 
the land of the Canaanites shall be possessed by the Israel- 
ites, and the cities be rebuilt, the labour anciently expend- 
ed on the construction of Area may facilitate its re-erection. 
On the top of the conical artificial hill on which the citadel 
stood, there are, as Burckhardt was told, sonne ruins of hab- 
itations and walls. " Upon an elevation on its east and south 
sides, which commands a beautiful view over the plain, the 
sea, and the Anzeyry Mountains, are large and extensive 
heaps of rubbish, traces of ancient buildings, blocks ofheicn 
sto?2e, remains of walls, and fragments of granite columns."! 

The city which covered the small islands of Aradus [Ar- 
vad) was the capital of the Arvadites. According to Stra- 
bo, they had, in early ages, kings of their own, like other 
cities of PhcKnicia ; and he states that in his day it was so 
crowded with inhabitants that they lived in houses of many 
stories. J As seen from the shore by Maundrell, it was 
wholly filled up with tall buildings like castles, and Po- 
cocke states that there were great remains of the outer wall, 
which on one side is very high and about fifteen feet thick, 
being built of large stones, some of which are fifteen feet 
long.§ 

Near it on the coast is the modern Tarious, supposed by 
some to be Orthosia. The ancient walls are of large hewn 
stones. The ancient castle or fort is surrounded by a double 
wall of coarse marble nearly half a mile in circuit, and es- 
timated by Pococke as at least fifty feet high ; within it is a 
roofless church, with several holy emblems carved upon its 
walls. Within the fortress are still to be seen the traces of 
the more extensive walls and ditch which encompassed the 
ancient city, and fragments of buildings and granite pillars 
mark the place of former grandeur. Amid all these scat- 
tered remains, the only edifice left is a large Christian church, 
divided into three aisles by two rows of clustered pillars, 



* Shaw's Travels, Oxon., 1738, p. 327, 328. 
i Strabo, p. 1071. 



t Burckhardt, p. 162. 
^ Pococke. p. 202. 



312 



RUINS IN THE NORTH OF SYRIA, 



like those of cathedrals in England. It is built of hewn 
stone inside and out, " It is one hundred and thirty feet in 
length, in breadth ninety-three, and in height sixty-one. 
Its walls, and arches, and pillars are of a bastard marble, 
and all still so entire that a small expense would suffice to 
recover it into the state of a beautiful church again. But," 
says Maundrell, " to the grief of any Christian beholder, it 
is now made a stall for cattle." It is still appropriated to 
no other use than a shelter for herds.* 

In travelling between Tortosa and Jebilee, Maundrell, af- 
ter noting heaps of ruins on both sides of the Naher-el-Me- 
lech, with several pillars of granite, and other marks of con- 
siderable buildings, adds, " Likewise, all along this day's 
journey, we observed many ruins of castles and houses, 
which testify that this country, however it be neglected at 
present, was once in the hands of a people that knew how 
to value it, and thought it worth the defending. Strabo calls 
this whole region, from Jebilee as far as Aradus, the coun- 
try of the Aradi, and gives us the names of several places 
situated anciently along this coast, as Paltus, Balanea, Ca- 
ranus, Enydra, Marathus, Ximyra."t 

The castle Merkab is about half a mile in circumference. 
The inner walls are fifteen feet thick. The ancient fortifi- 
cations now enclose a village.:): From Tortosa to Jebilee 
the tract exhibits ruins of castles and ancient sites, and the 
whole tract from hence to Latakia, to judge from the ruins 
and ancient sites which are met with, was formerly thickly in- 
habited, though now nearly deserted.^ 

Banias, though entirely deserted, is doubtless the ancient 
Balanea. " Its situation proves it to have been anciently 
pleasant, its ruins are well built, and its bay an advantageous 
situation." II 

Granite pillars, hewn blocks, excavated sepulchres, the 
remains of a mole, constructed of huge square stones, pro- 
jecting into the sea, testify in some measure the ancient 
splendour of the city of Gahala or Jehilee ; but the greatest 
existing monument of its former eminence is the remains of 
a noble theatre, said to have been of immense height, though, 
" as for what remains of this mighty Babel," says Maundrell, 
** it is no more than twenty feet high. The flat side of it 
has been blown up with gunpowder by the Turks ; and from 

* Maundrell, p. 1524-25. Pococke, p. 201. Buckingham, 520-522. 

t Maundrell, p. 21, 22. % Pococke, p. 201. Irby and Mangles, p. 222. 

^ Mr. Robinson, p. 71. II Maundrell, p. 23. 



BEYOND THE ANCIENT BORDERS OF ISRAEL. 313 



thence (as they related) was taken a great quantity of mar- 
ble which we saw used in adorning the bagnio and mosque." 
The semicircle, which alone is standing, extends a hundred 
yards from corner to corner. The massiveness of the build- 
ing, still convertible to other uses than the structure of a 
mosque, may be judged of by the thickness of the walls of 
hewn stone. " The outer wall is three yards three quarters 
thick, and built of very large and firm stones, whose great 
strength has preserved it thus."* 

LataJda, the ancient Laodicea, built by Seleucus in honour 
of his mother, and in Christian times the see of a bishop, 
may supply a significant, but imperfect, because untimely, 
illustration of the facility with which long-buried cities may 
be disentombed, and the hewn stones be applied to their yet 
destined use. It was a very inconsiderable place till, to- 
wards the close of the seventeenth century, on the establish- 
ment of the tobacco trade to Damietta, the town was enlar- 
ged, and several good houses were built of the hewn stones 
which, in the time and according to the testimony of Po- 
cocke, they were continually digging out of the ruins, for the 
ground of the city is risen very much, having been often de- 
stroyed by earthquakes.! Such was the testimony of Po- 
cocke nearly a century ago ; and Mr. Robinson, who visited 
it in 1830, states that the ruins of the ancient city offer ready 
building materials to the modern inhabitants. J 

For the reconstruction of Laodicea not a stone was blast- 
ed in the quarry, nor hewn anew, nor transported to the spot. 
The ancient city, like Ceesarea, was itself the quarry, and 
the hewn stones, all ready, were raised up where they lay : 
and when the desolation which earthquakes wrought in lev- 
elling the city, and thereby raising the ground on which it 
stood, shall be counter-wrought by the sons of strangers 
building up the walls, the ground shall be reduced again to 
its proper level, the heaps disappear, and Laodicea be again 
what it was in the days of Strabo, a splendidly-built city.i^ 

Some remains of piers built into the sea, foundations of walls 
of large hewn stones, and some signs of a stronghold at the 
end of a pier, a supposed tower that defended the port, seem 
to indicate the site of Heracleum, a city which, like many in 
Syria, can only be raised again from its foundations. |1 As 
low as it lies the neighbouring town of Fossidium, far more 

* Maundrell, p.-21. Pococke, p. 199. Burckliardt, p 529, 530. 

t Pococke, p. 197. t Robinson's Travels, vol. ii., p. 339. 

<i Strabo, lib. xvi., p. 1068, ed. Falcon. Ii Pococke, p. 194, 195. 

D D 



314 



JlUlNS IN THK NORTH Ol' SYRIA, 



easily recognised by the name of Bosseda than by the signs 
of a town-wall and of a fosse, the remains of a round tower, 
and of a few houses of hewn stone, as if to tell where others 
lie, which now bear that name.* 

If the reader think, from such examples as these, that he 
has been led in vain through many a useless ruin, in which no- 
thing worthy of notice, as travellers sometimes say, can be 
seen, and which only dishonour the ancient names they bear, 
let him look, as in the first plate, on the spot where the sea rip- 
ples on a few bare stones stretching into it from a sandy 
beach, and let him listen, not to the tale of an ordinary trav- 
eller, who might pass them by all but unheeded, but to the 
testimony of one who deservedly stands high among the mil- 
itary engineers of Britain, and now commands its artillery on 
the coast of China, to open up a way, perhaps, for the Gos- 
pel of peace into that land long sealed in darkness ; and he 
may learn that richer treasures lie concealed amid the deso- 
lations of many generations than the wild Arab believes to be 
hid among ruii»s. 

In that plate he has already seen how, from the sea, the very 
high mountain may be pointed out, from which Mount Amanus 
stretches along, as it forms, the northern border of the prom- 
ised land. And if the time be come when Hor-ha-hor may 
at last be recognised as the scriptural landmark from which 
Israel's true border may be pointed out, the very spot from 
which the view is taken, and from which the Apostle Paul 
first embarked from Syria, may be a witness of the triumph 
"which, in the land of its birth, as throughout the world, the 
Gospel shall yet achieve. Knowledge shall be the sta- 
bility of the times of the Messiah, when there shall be no 
more desolation : and though no " gallant ships" shall pass 
by Jerusalem, they may be safely moored in the harbours of 
Israel, when its cities shall be rebuilt, and the merchandise 
of Tyre shall be holiness to the Lord. The time has come 
when, strange as it may seem, it is neither a problem nor a 
phantasy to say that the long-forgotten labours of Seleucus, 
as of Herod, may be turned to account at no distant day, and 
how these mighty kings, like many beside them, were as 
hewers of stone for the cities of Israel. 

Along the seacoast — which was destined for a time to be 
destroyed — we have seen how, on one extremity, materials 
for the reconstruction of a city and of a harbour have recent- 

* Pococke, p. 195. 



BEYOND THE ANCIENT BORDERS OF ISRAEL. 315 



ly been laid open to view at AskeJon^ and how the ornaments 
of a palace, &c., have been already taken from the heaps of 
Caesarea ; and, having reached the entrance into Haniath, 
we may pause for a moment at the ruins of Seleucia, and 
think of things that yet shall be. 

The article from the pen of Colonel Chesney, on the Bay 
of Antioch and the ruins of Seleucia Pieria, here again sup- 
plies us with facts alike interesting and important, which 
might at once silence every cavil as to the restoration of a 
port, or the re-erection of a city in Syria. The needful re- 
pairs of a Phoenician harbour may be as "trifling" as those 
of a city of Bashan, when the cities that need no more shall, 
according to the Word of the Lord, be repaired, and the 
desolations of many generations shall be raised up to perpet- 
uate the glory of the God of Israel. Modern, like ancient, 
governors and kings have all their projects of a day, but the 
covenant of the Lord shall stand forever. 

" Ali Pasha, the present governor of Bagdad (once gov- 
ernor of Aleppo), had, however, a different project (than that 
of rendering the Orontes navigable) when he turned his 
thoughts to the means of increasing the commercial pros- 
perity of this part of Turkey. The foundation of his plan 
was to be the restoration of the once magnificent port of Se- 
leucia, the masonry of which is still in so good a state that 
it merely requires trifling repairs in some places, and to be 
cleared out, which might have been done for £31,000, and 
partially for £10,000.* On the south side of the entrance 
there is a very substantial jetty, formed of large blocks of 
stone secured by iron cramps. It runs northwest for sev- 
enty yards to the sea, and it may still be traced running 
more to the north under water, and overlapping the northern 
jetty, which is in a more ruinous state, but appears to have 
taken the direction of W.S.W., forming a kind of basin, 
with a narrow entrance, tolerably well protected, and alto- 
gether suited for the Roman galleys. The ancient flood- 
gates are about fifty yards east of the south pier. The pas- 
sage for the galleys, &c., is cut through the solid rock, on 
which are the remains of a defensive tower on each side ; 
apartments below, with the remains of staircases to the top 
of each, are sufficiently distinct, as well as the places where 
the gates had been suspended between the towers. 

" Immediately on passing the gateway the passage widens 

* According- to the estimate of Mr, Vincent Germain. 



316 



RUINS IN THE 



NORTH 



OF SYRIA, 



to about 100 yards : it takes the direction of S.E. by E. 
between two solid walls of masonry for 350 yards to the 
entrance of the great basin, which is now closed by a gar- 
den wall. The port or basin is an irregular wall of about 
450 yards long by 350 in width in the southern extremity, 
and rather more than 200 at the northern. The surround- 
ing wall is formed of large cut stones solidly put together, 
and now rising only about seven feet above the mud, which, 
during the lapse of ages, has gradually accumulated so as to 
cover probably about eight feet above the original level. 
The exterior side of the basin is about one third of a mile 
from the sea ; the interior is close to the foot of the hill. 
The walls of the suburb touch the southwestern extremity 
of the basin, and entered S. by E., from thence parallel to 
the sea for three quarters of a mile, when they turn east- 
M^ard for the same distance, flanked at short intervals by 
square towers. These walls form a triangle, touching the 
basin at one end, and the walls of the principal city at the 
other, so as to enclose what is described by Polybius, and 
subsequently by Pococke, as the market-place and suburbs. 
The walls of the interior part of the city appear to have had, 
as usual in Roman fortresses, a double line of defence, 
sweeping round to the north, where they rest against the 
hill, which seems to have a castellated citadel on its sum- 
mit. On the S.E. side of the walls is the gate of Antioch, 
adorned with pilasters and defended by towers ; this en- 
trance must have been very handsome ; near it, and paral- 
lel to the walls, are the remains of a double row of marble 
columns. The space within the walls of the town and sub- 
urbs, which have a circumference altogether of about four 
miles, is filled with the ruins of houses. A short distance 
from the town, on the east side, are the remains of a large 
amphitheatre tolerably distinct. About fourteen rows of 
seats may be traced in a semicircular form, filling up the 
whole of the valley in which the amphitheatre is placed, 
with its opening to the west, commanding a fine view of the 
bay. To the S.E., and behind the hill (on which is the 
amphitheatre), are the remains of two temples ; the frag- 
ments of pilasters, shafts, &c., are numerous ; one seems to 
have been of the Corinthian order, in good taste, but I could 
not make out the plan of either of the buildings. The range 
of hills behind the ruins extends almost two miles, and con- 
tains along its sides, as well as in the valleys, numerous 



BEYOND THE ANCIENT BORDERS OF ISRAEL. 317 



excavations, which are almost continuous throughout this 
distance. Generally speaking, they form only a single row 
and of small size, but occasionally there is a second line of 
them, above or below the others. For part of the distance 
these grottoes (evidently sepulchral) are generally of two 
kinds ; the larger about twelve feet long by seven wide, 
having the front supported by pilasters left in excavating the 
solid rock, and within are three niches for bodies, viz., one 
on each side, and one at the back of the same dimensions, 
viz., two feet and a half high, and the same width, with a 
raised place left in the niche, of solid stone about four inches 
high, like a pillow for the head to rest upon ; these niches 
are sometimes arched, but generally flat above. The small- 
er grottoes have a niche at each side, with a narrow space 
between them. One set of grottoes is called the Tomb of 
Kings : it consists of a fagade entrance and several apart- 
ments, one within the other, with columns, and a staircase 
leading to another range of rooms above. In addition to 
these, which are the most striking, there is another single 
grotto of large dimensions in one of the valleys along the 
side of the hill : this excavation is 100 paces by 60 wide, 
and 25 high in the centre, the rock being excavated so as 
to form an arch springing from the ground on each side, that 
is, without side- walls. In addition to these sepulchral grot- 
toes, of which some hundreds cover the face of the hills and 
all their valleys, there are many sarcophagi scattered about 
in every direction, always of good workmanship, and toler- 
ably perfect, although they have been opened in almost ev- 
ery instance, probably in search of money. 

" But the most striking part of the interesting remains at 
Seleucia is a very extensive excavation, cut through the 
solid rock from the northeastern extremity of the town al- 
most to the sea, part of which is a deep hollow way, and 
the remainder regular tunnels, excavated with great skill 
and considerable labour."* It extends 1088 yards. 

The markets and the suburbs, which, according to Polyb- 
ius, lay between the city and the sea, were fortified with 
strong walls ; and those which surrounded the city itself 
were remarkable for their beauty as well as their strength. 
Temples and other magnificent edifices adorned Seleucia. f 
According to Strabo, it was strongly fortified ; and Seleucis, 

* Journal of the Geographical Society, vol. viii., p. 230-232. 
t Polyb., Hist., lib. v., c. 5. 

D D 2 



318 



RUINS IN THE NORTH OF SYRIA, 



in which it lay, was also called Tetrapolis, or the four cities, 
from Antioch, Seleucia, Apamea, and Laodicea, the four 
most illustrious cities of that region, in which there were 
also others.* An indiscriminate heap of ruins, enclosed 
within the remains of walls four miles in circuit, looks not 
now as if, in another form, it ever had been destined to dig- 
nify the name of Seleucus Nicator, the most renowned and 
triumphant of the successors of Alexander the Great. How 
little the greatness of an ancient city, or the utility to which 
its ruins are easily convertible, may be recognised in the 
notice which a passing traveller deigns to take, may appear 
from the fact that Captains Irby and Mangles, intelligent 
travellers as they were, and in search of ruins, rested during 
night two miles from the ruins of Seleucia, and passed with- 
out visiting them, not merely because they were pressed for 
time, but because they understood that the " ruins possessed 
no particular interest." Now many a city of Syria may, to 
all visible appearance, be thus justly described ; but while 
they are thus shown to be utterly desolate, a closer exam- 
ination vindicates the word which, long before their fall — 
nay, before the erection of many of them — foretold their yet 
future rise. 

But an estimate for the reconstruction of any ancient port 
or city is a novelty : and unworthy of an hour's detention as 
ruins may really be, from the little interest which their sight 
awakens, let the engineer or the architect set about the work 
of the rebuilding of a once magnificent city, and heaps else 
unworthy of notice become, on disclosing their stores, as 
treasures in their eyes, and " masonry" that has unprolitably 
braved the billows for ages may be restored, at comparative- 
ly a trifling cost and easy process, to its primitive use. 

Having passed from the south along the Syrian and Phos- 
nician coast to Seleucia, the last city of Syria, it may be worth 
while, without turning aside from our subject, to offer a brief 
remark or two suitable to the spot, and deducible from the 
facts immediately or previously before us. 

The present pasha of Egypt on the one end of the coast, 
and, on the other extremity, the present pasha of Bagdad, 
while he held another office, purposed, at least, to set their 
hands, in either case, to a work, the practicability, nay, the 
facility of which, under more propitious circumstances, it 
were now unreasonable to doubt. The preparatory work 

* Strabo, c. xvi., p. 1064, 



BEYOND THE ANCIENT BORDERS OF ISRAEL. 819 

was accomplished in the one case, and an estimate furnish- 
ed in the other ; but so wild a project would never have 
crossed the imagination of either pasha as that of erecting 
a city or constructing a port, if Askelon and Seleucia, fallen 
as they are, had not existed as they lie, ready to be raised 
or to be restored. Faccardine, a prince of the Druses, fill- 
ed up the ports of Syria that he might shut out from them 
the ships of the sultan. He was the unconscious instru- 
ment, at last, in fully accomplishing the word of the Lord : 
/ will destroy the remnant of the seacoast* But, according 
to the same infallible word, the coast shall he for the remnant 
of the house of Judah.j And no exception is made of its 
cities when the work of restoration shall be beg^un. For 
that of the once magnificent port of Seleucia, " trifling re- 
pairs in some places," and the " clearing out" of the harbour, 
now an easy task, alone suffice. If the time were come, 
let but a word be spoken, and the work would be done. 
So slight would be the expenditure, that many thousands of 
individuals now would scarcely boast of the restoration, at 
such a price, of the once magnificent port of Seleucia : and 
there are not a few of the tribe of Judah who would not be 
impoverished by the restoration, if effected thus, of many 
harbours in Syria, May it not be that Faccardine's mode 
of rendering useless for a season the Syrian harbours, has 
proved a mean of preserving them ? And how easily might 
it be done away, as it was easily effected, and at how tri- 
fling a cost, were other estimates given, compared to the 
heavy tax which Herod the Great laid on a kingdom, to con- 
struct, in so marvellous a manner, the port and city of Cae- 
sarea, or Seleucus that of Seleucia. 

But till the Lord willeth — in whose hands are the times 
and the seasons, as Jesus said when the time of the resto- 
ration of the kingdom to Israel was the question put to him 
who alone could answer it — till the Lord willeth, even the 
attempted restoration will be in vain. It is not by might, 
nor by strength, far less by money, the love of which has 
been the stumbling-block of their iniquity, that the covenant of 
promise shall meet with its accomplishment. But we have 
seen an instance, like many others which may be marked in 
passing, that national works, as they might seem, may be 
the device of a moment, and, like Israel's own restoration, 
the work of a day. The city of Seleucia was worthy of a 

* Ezek., XXV., 16. t Zeph., ii., 7. 



320 



RUINS IN THE NORTH OF SYRIA, 



great king, of whom it was written in the Scripture of Truths 
"he shall have dominion, his kingdom shall be a great do- 
minion."* He was the first of the Seleucidse, a stranger^ 
but the conqueror of Syria, renowned, like Herod, for the 
noble cities that he built. The work respectively assigned 
them by Israel's God, which strangers began, though long 
retarded and seemingly reversed for centuries past, the sons 
of strangers,^ who of late have prematurely tried it, shall 
yet timely finish. 

Antioch, the seat of many kings, the chief patriarchate of 
the East, whose walls and bulwarks were ranked among the 
strongest, and its numerous churches were the finest in the 
world, often shattered and destroyed by earthquakes, more 
than by all the fiercest ravages of war, has still some tokens 
to show with what facility, were the days of its restoration 
come, it would be a great city again, but not a proud city as 
before, the seat of despotic and priestly domination. The 
capital of a province or tribedom in Israel shall not be like 
the capital of a Roman province or a patriarchal see, where 
sin reigned and ruin followed. 

A single sentence, and the view of a single gate (see 
Plate), as drawn by Las Casas, towards the close of last 
century, may show that a city without walls, as those of Is- 
rael shall be, might be built from those which anciently 
were raised for its defence. The ancient walls (as now to 
be seen), which appear to have enclosed a space of nearly 
four miles in circuit, are " generally from thirty to fifty feet 
in height in their extremes, and fifteen feet thick throughout, 
having also square towers from fifty to eighty feet high, at 
intervals of from fifty to eighty yards apart. The stones of 
which these walls are constructed are not large, but the ma- 
sonry is solid and good. In the S.W. quarter, the walls and 
towers (of hewn stone) are in one portion perfect, and in 
another close by much destroyed, until they disappear al- 
together, leaving a wide space between their last fragment 
here, and the portion that continues along the banks of the 
river."! Pliny states that it was divided by the Orontes ; 
but now the present town, which is a miserable one, does 
not occupy more than one eighth part of the space included 
by the old walls, which are all on its southern side. The 
northern portion within the ancient walls is now filled with 



* D.in., xi., 5. t Isa., Ix., 10. 

$ Jiucl;i;>-]i;uirs Travels among the Arab Tribes, p. 560, 66J. 



BEYOND THE ANCIENT BOKDERS OF ISRAEL, 321 



one extensive wood of gardens, chiefly olive, mulberry, and 
fig trees.* Of the many elegant churches of Antioch, the 
remains of only three or four, a century ago, were to be 
seen. Pococke saw some pieces of marble of a Mosaic 
pavement, which he supposed might indicate the site of the 
patriarchal church ; and he conjectured that the patriarch- 
al palace stood on the top of a hill in its vicinity. Such 
is the end of the apostolic see ! A vague conjecture is the 
only homage that can now be paid to the departed glory of 
the throne which exercised supremacy over two hundred 
and forty bishoprics. It is but a glory of this world that 
can thus pass away, and such is the inheritance which the 
highest of hierarchies can bequeath. 

Vainglory stimulated Syrian kings and Roman governors 
to erect splendid cities, and superstition in later ages prompt- 
ed Roman devotees to raise stately edifices that could cope 
with magnificent heathen temples ; each sharing a like fate 
in their ruins, may be turned to a like use in their end. If 
the multitude of churches could have saved a city or a coun- 
try, Antioch with its hundreds would yet have stood ; and 
the hill between it and the sea (Benkiliseh), with its repu- 
ted thousand churches, as the name imports, would yet have 
been covered with the dwellings of men. At the top of it 
are the remains of a very noble convent, called St. Simon 
Slylltes ; the whole of which was compassed by a wall built 
of hewn stone, about ninety paces in front, and two hundred 
and thirty in length. 

A similar edifice of the same name, with numerous build- 
ings anciently surrounding it, enough to have formed a mag- 
nificent city, is described both by Pococke and Mr. Drum- 
mond, who was British consul at Aleppo in the middle of 
last century. It is situated about tvv enty miles to the north- 
west of Aleppo. It v.'as famous in the sixth and seventh 
centuries, not only for the devotion paid to the saint, but 
also for the spaciousness and magnificence of its buildings, 
which are yet entitled to a place among the ruins of Syria. 
" The whole convent appears to have been built of large 
hewn stones, and is about a quarter of a mile in length. 
The church especially," says Pococke, " is very magnificent, 
and is built in form of a Greek cross. At the east end of the 
choir are three semicircles, where, without doubt, there 
were three altars, and the entrances to them are adorned 

* Irty and Mangles, p, §29. Buckingham, p. 562. Pococke, p. 387, 



S22 



KUINS IN THE NOHTH OF SYRIA 



with reliefs."* The breadth of the church is two hundred 
and seventy-eight feet, and on the south side there is a 
handsome portico : the whole length was computed at three 
hundred and fifcy-two feet. Without the church, on the 
back part of the altar, are two rows of six Corinthian pil- 
lars, &c. The cloisters, or cells for the monks, have been 
very extensive, with a grandeur proportioned to that of the 
church.t 

" The reputed sanctity of the place invited a vast number 
of deluded enthusiasts to settle around it, so that the whole 
hill, together with a great part of the plain below, was cov- 
ered with buildings. From the ruins that are found in all 
these countries, it appears that the meanest buildings had 
been of solid architecture. Several villag'es in the vicinitv, 
now in ruins, were built of hewn stone. "J 

Ruins of cities and of churches are numerous in the inte- 
rior of Northern Syria, as well as along the Phoenician 
coast ; and in passing to a review of them, we may cast a 
glance at another convent in the north of Syria, and at thick- 
set churches, now in ruins, dedicated to other saints. The 
unimpeachable testimony of Maundrell, who was chaplain 
to the British factory at Aleppo, may be here adduced ; and 
the preamble may tend to show that idolatry, or superstition, 
is not a solitary vice. 

" We went to Sydonaiia, a Greek convent about four 
hours distant from Damascus, to the northward, or north by 
east. This place was first founded and endowed by the 
Emperor Justinian. It is (A.D. 1697) possessed by twenty 
Greek monks and forty nuns, who seem to live promiscu- 
ously together, without any order or separation. There are 
upon this rock, and within a little distance round it, no less 
than sixteen churches or oratorios, dedicated to several 
names. The 1st, to St. John ; 2d, to St. Paul ; 3d, to St. 
Thomas ; 4th, to St. Babylas ; 5th, to St. Barbara ; 6th, to 
St. Christopher ; 7th, to St. Joseph ; 8th, to St. Lazarus ; 
9th, to the Blessed Virgin; 10th, to St. Demetrius ; 11th, 
to St. Saba ; 12th, to St. Peter ; 13th, to St. George ; 14th, 
to all Saints ; 15th, to the Ascension ; 16th, to the Trans- 
figuration of our Lord ; from all which we may well con- 
clude this place was held anciently in no small repute for 
sanctity. Many of these churches I actually visited, but 



* Pococke, p. 170. t Drummond's TraA^els, p. 196, 

t Prummond, p. 195, 196. Pococke, p. 170, 



BEYOND THE ANCIENT BORDERS OF ISRAEL. 323 



found them so ruined and desolate that I had not courage to 
go to all."* 

In a previous part of his work, the same author, after de- 
scribing how, in the midst of the ruins of Tyre, there stands 
up one pile higher than the rest, which is the east end of a 
great church, probably of the Cathedral of Tyre, adds, 

" I cannot omit an observation made by most of our com- 
pany in this journey, viz., that in all the ruins of churches 
which we saw, though their other parts were totally demol- 
ished, yet the east end we always found standing and toler- 
ably entire. Whether the Christians, when overrun by in- 
fidels, redeemed their altars from ruin with money ; or 
whether even the barbarians, when they demolished the 
other parts of the churches, might voluntarily spare these, 
out of an awe and veneration ; or whether they have stood 
thus long by virtue of some peculiar firmness in the nature 
of their fabric [the most likely supposition] ; or whether 
some occult Providence has preserved them, as so many 
standing monuments of Christianity in these unbelieving re- 
gions, and presages of its future restoration, I will not de- 
termine. This only I will say, that we found it, in fact, so 
as I have described, in all the ruined churches that came in 
our way, being perhaps not fewer than one hundred ; nor 
do I remember ever to have seen one instance to the con- 
trary. This might justly seem a trifling observation, were 
it founded upon a few examples only ; but it being a thing 
so often, and, indeed, universally observed by us, throughout 
our whole journey, I thought it must needs proceed from 
something more than blind chance, and might very well de- 
serve this animadversion."! 

And it does well deserve notice, and animadversion too. 
"Whatever be its cause, the fact is as striking as it is true. 
Of such walls of churches in regions not visited by Maun- 
drell, the reader has already heard, and of niches for stat- 
ues still visible where altars have been overthrown. The 
eyes of the Lord are set continually upon the land ; and it 
is justly said that the remarkable fact, as Maundrell thought, 
must proceed from something more than blind chance. Not 
a sparrow can fall to the ground without the Father. It was 
not without him that hundreds, or, rather, thousands of 
churches fell in Syria ; and it was not by chance, we may 
well say, that the only part, if any, that alike in all uniform- 

* Mauadrell's Travel?, p. 176, 177, May 2. f Ibid., p. 65, 66. March SO, 



324 



RUINS IN THE NOllTH OF IrfYRIA, 



ly stood, was that which showed, and shows as a witness 
still, that each church which fell had an altar, if not, also, 
each altar a niche. Maundrell, a most correct observer of 
facts, looked on Samaria without seeing or noting the ful- 
filment of any of the striking predictions concerning it. 
Had he regarded the prophecy which assigns the cause of 
all the predicted desolations, even Because they have changed 
the ordinance and broken the everlasting covenant, therefore 
hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell there- 
in are desolate,* &c,, he might have laid vain conjectures 
aside, and have looked on the only standing wall of each 
fallen church amid desolate cities as a monument and me- 
morial of the fact. 

In journeying from Antioch to Aleppo, Captains Irby and 
Mangles " passed many sites of ancient towns, castles, banks, 
temples, &,c., all of the lower empire, and very uninterest- 
ing : on one occasion they counted eleven sites in a rich 
plain, with a firm loamy soil, now left desolate and unin- 
habited."! 

But, reverting to the cities nearer to the ancient borders 
of Israel, w^e may trace them in their ruins from south to 
north, so far as these have been discovered and are most 
worthy of notice, though a transient view is all that can be 
taken. 

The banks of the Orontes were adorned with other noble 
cities besides Antioch. Near its source, Mr. Buckingham 
saw, at a distance of about three miles, a ruined town (El- 
Jussee), said to be a large city, with pillars, aqueducts, and 
castles, but now entirely deserted. About two miles below 
it, on the plain, was another town, which retained some in- 
habitants. | 

In the valley of Bekaa stand the noble ruins of the ancient 
Baalhec (Heliopolis, or Baalath of Scripture). Neither in 
a general view of the ruins of Syria, nor in a prospective 
view of the restoration of the kingdom to Israel, are they to 
be overlooked, though comparatively well known. Many 
other cities, when raised again, shall be numbered for the 
first time among the cities of that kingdom, as the throne of 
David had fallen before the stones which formed them were 
taken from their original quarry ; but, built as it was by Sol- 
omon, Baalbec has a prescriptive title to a place in the king- 

* Isa., xxiv., 5. t Travels, p. 231, 

\ Buckingham's Tr^^vels among the Arab Tribes, p. 490. 



BEYOND THE ANCIENT BORDERS OF ISRAEL. 325 



doiii ; and its columns, worthy of a world's fame, and its tem- 
ple walls a world's wonder, still stand to adorn a city of Is- 
rael, even while its everlasting columns endure, and the cov- 
enant of the Lord shall stand fast with his people, as his or- 
dinance shall stand with the sun, to the worship of which, in 
pagan times, which these pillars have outlived, Heliopolis, 
as the name imports, was dedicated. 

Burckhardt and Buckingham decline the description of its 
ruins, because the task, to which his graphic powers were 
equal, had been so well and so faithfully executed by Yol- 
ney. His description, though familiar to some, may be part- 
ly given, for the sake of other readers. An infidel may de- 
scribe a pagan temple, and yet the glory may redound, as 
yet it shall, to the Holy One of Israel, who has placed such 
ruins within the heritage of Jacob. 

" At the entrance of the city (Baalbec) we perceive a ru- 
ined wall, flanked with square towers, which ascends the 
declivity to the right, and traces the precincts of the ancient 
city. Over this wall, which is only 10 or 12 feet high, we 
have a view of those void spaces, and heaps of ruins which 
are the invariable appendage of every Turkish city ; but what 
principally attracts our attention is a large edifice on the left, 
which, by its lofty walls and rich columns, manifestly ap- 
pears to be one of those temples which antiquity has left for 
our admiration. These ruins, which are among the most 
beautiful, and in the best preservation of any in Asia, de- 
serve to be particularly mentioned. 

" To form a just idea of them, we must conceive ourselves 
descending from the interior of the town. After crossing 
the rubbish and huts with which it is filled, we arrive at a 
vacant place which appears to have been a square ; there, 
in front towards the west, we perceive a grand view, con- 
sisting of two pavilions ornamented with pilasters, joined at 
their bottom angle by a wall 160 feet in length. This front 
commands the open country from a sort of terrace, on the 
edge of which we distinguish with difficulty the bases of 
twelve columns, which formerly extended from one pavilion 
to the other, and formed a portico. The principal gate is 
obstructed by heaps of stones ; but that obstacle surmounted, 
we enter an empty space which is an hexagonal court of 
180 feet diameter. This court is strewed with broken col- 
umns, mutilated capitals, and the remains of pilasters, entab- 
latures, and cornices ; around it is a yow of ruined edifices, 

E E 



326 RUINS IN THE NOKTH OF SYEIA, 



which display all the ornaments of the richest architecture. 
At the end of this court we perceive a still more extensive 
range of ruins, whose magnificence strongly excites curios- 
ity. To have a full prospect of these, we must ascend a 
slope, which led by steps to this gate, and we then arrive 
at the entrance of a square court much more spacious than 
the former (350 feet wide, and 336 long). The end of this 
court first attracts the eye, where six enormous and majes- 
tic columns render the scene amazingly grand and pictu- 
resque. Another object, not less interesting, is a second 
range of columns to the left, which appear to have been part 
of the peristyle of a temple ; but, before we pass thither, the 
edifices which enclose this court on each side demand par- 
ticular attention. They form a sort of gallery which con- 
tains various chambers, seven of which may be reckoned in 
each of the principal wings, viz., two in a semicircle, and 
five in an oblong square. The bottoms of these apartments 
still retain pediments of niches and tabernacles, the sup- 
porters of which are destroyed. At length we arrive at the 
foot of the six columns, and there first conceive all the bold- 
ness of their elevation, and the richness of their workman- 
ship. Their shafts are 21 feet 8 inches in circumference, 
and 58 high, so that the total height, including the entabla- 
tures, is from 71 to 72 feet. The sight of this superb ruin, 
thus solitary and unaccompanied, at first strikes us with as- 
tonishment ; but in a more attentive examination we discov- 
er a series of foundations, which mark an oblong square of 
268 feet in length and 146 wide, and which, it seems prob- 
able, was the peristyle of a grand temple, the original pur- 
pose of this whole structure. It presented to the great court 
— that is, to the east — a front of 10 columns, with 19 on 
each side, which, with the other six, make in all 54. The 
ground on which it stood was an oblong square, in a level 
with this court, but narrower than it, so that there was only 
a terrace of twenty seven feet wide round the colonnade. 
The esplanade this produces fronts the open country, towards 
the west, by a sloping wall of about thirty feet. This de- 
scent, as you approach the city, becomes less steep, so that 
the foundation of the pavilion is on a level with the ter- 
mination of the hill, whence it is evident that the whole 
ground of the courts has been raised by art. Such was the 
former state of this edifice ; but the southern side of the 
grand temple was afterward blocked up to build a smaller 



BEYOND THE ANCIENT BORDEKS OF ISRAEL, 327 



one, the peristyle and walls of which still remain. This 
temple, situated some feet lower than the other, presents a 
side of 13 colunms by 8 in front (in all 34), which are like- 
wise of the Corinthian order; their shafts are 15 feet 8 inch- 
es in circumference, and 44 in height. The building they 
surround is an oblong square, the front of which, facing the 
east, is out of the line of the left wing of the great court. 
To reach it, you must cross trunks of columns, heaps of 
stone, and a ruinous wall which now hides it. Having sur- 
mounted these obstacles, you arrive at the gate, where you 
may survey the enclosure which was once inhabited by a 
god ; but, instead of the awful scene of a prostrate people, 
and a multitude of priests offering sacrifices, the sky, which 
is open from the falling in of the roof, only admits light to 
show a chaos of ruins, covered with dust and weeds. The 
walls, formerly encircled with all the ornaments of the Co- 
rinthian order, now present nothing but pediments of niches, 
and tabernacles, of which almost all the supporters are fall- 
en to the ground. Between these niches is a range of flu- 
ted pilasters, whose capitals sustain a broken entablature, 
but what remains of it displays a rich frieze of foliage, rest- 
ing on the heads of satyrs, horses, bulls, &c. Over this en- 
tablature was the ancient roof, which was 57 feet wide and 
110 in length. The walls by which it was supported are 
31 feet high, and without a window. We can form no idea 
of the ornaments of this roof, except from the fragments ly- 
ing on the ground ; but it could not have been richer than 
the gallery of the peristyle. Nothing can surpass the work- 
manship of the columns ; they are joined without any ce- 
ment, yet there is not room for the blade of a knife between 
their interstices. After so many ages they in general retain 
their original whiteness. But what is still more astonish- 
ing is the enormous stones which composed the sloping wall. 
To the west the second layer is formed of stones which are 
from 28 to 35 feet long, by about nine in height. Over this 
layer, at the northwest angle, there are three stones which 
alone occupy a space of 175^ feet, viz., the first, 58 feet 7 
inches ; the second, 58 feet 1 1 ; and the third, exactly 58 
feet, and each of these is 12 feet thick. A stone still lies 
there, hewn on three sides, which is 69 feet 2 inches long, 
12 feet 10 inches broad, and 13 feet 3 inches in thickness. 
By what means could the ancients move these masses ? 
This is, no doubt, a problem in mechanics curious to re- 



328 



EUINS IN THE NORTH OF SYRIA, 



solve.* " Three of the stones," says Maundrell, ^' we took 
the pains to measure, and found them to extend sixty-one 
yards in length ; one, twenty-one ; the other two, each twen- 
ty yards. These three stones lay in the same row, end to 
end. The rest of the wall was made also of great stones, 
but none, I think, so great as these. That which added to 
the wonder was, that these stones were lifted up into the 
wall more than twenty feet from the ground."! 

If from the grave of Cassarea or the heaps that cover it, 
marble baths could be constructed and a palace be adorned, 
and if a trifling repair, at slight expense, would suffice for 
the restoration of the magnificent port of Ceesarea, that has 
been choked with sand and lashed with waves for ages, 
surely the masses of ruins that cover Baalbec shall not lie 
forever undisturbed. If new arts were needed for their res- 
toration instead of those that would seem to be lost, they 
are not now wanting; for new powers, which heathens 
knew not, are now in operation for the construction of edi- 
fices, sufficient, if needful, to raise, as feathers, burdens 
which a thousand slaves could not bear. The w^ondrous 
walls which, for so many ages, haA^e witnessed pagan wor- 
ship and an apostate faith, have not stood so long in vain, 
but shall yet resound to holier strains, and Heliopolis (the 
city of the sun) be a city on which the Sun of righteousness 
shall shine, and the Holy One of Israel be adored. And those 
noble and beauteous pillars, on which such admirable work 
has been wrought by human hands, which yet stand around 
a fallen temple, erected in honour of false gods, whose broken 
images are strewed on its base, may be looked on as the em- 
blem of a nobler workmanship than that of man, and of the ful- 
filment of a better promise than ever pagans knew : Him that 
overcometli will I make a 'pillar in the temple of my God, and 
I will write upon him the name of the city of my God.'l 

" In the days of paganism both Emesa and Heliopolis 
were addicted to the worship of Baal, or the sun ; but the 
decline of their superstition and splendour has been marked 
by a singular variety of fortune. Not a vestige remains of 
the temple of Emesa, which was equalled in poetic style to 
the summits of Mount Libanus, while the ruins of Baalbec, 
invisible to the writers of antiquity, excite the curiosity and 
wonder of the European traveller."^ It is with the cities 



* Volney's Travels, chap, xxix., English trans. t Maundrell, p. 156. 

t Rev., ill., 12. • () Gibbon, vol. ix., c. li., p. 404« 



BEYOND THE ANCIENT BORDERS OF ISRAEL. 329 



as with the land of Israel — a few gleaning grapes are left 
when the vintage is past — two or three berries on the utmost 
bough, when the olive has been shaken. Many other cit- 
ies of Syria were in ancient times far more renowned than 
Baalbec, which claims a first place among ruins. It stands 
so far as yet erect, a witness of what was ; and, without 
such ocular demonstration of their ancient magnificence, 
the records of their greatness might have ranked among fab- 
ulous tales, were not the structure of an ancient wall a prob- 
lem to the moderns. But a variety of fortune, no less sin- 
gular than that noted by Gibbon, has marked, in a different 
manner, the checkered fate of Emesa and Heliopolis, now 
Homs and Baalbec. While the latter has scarcely an inhab- 
itant, the former has its thousands. Siege after siege, and 
earthquake after earthquake, have laid its glory in the dust, 
till its great temple must be sought for in the ground, with- 
out a vestige to guide the digger of its grave. " No more 
remains," says Mr. Buckingham, " of the ancient city of 
Emesa, than perhaps the basework of the castle, a sepul- 
chral monument, and some granite columns and stone sar- 
cophagi, scattered up and down, and sometimes used in the 
construction of the more modern buildings. The population 
of the town is thought to amount to 10,000, of whom 8000 
are Moslems."* 

But Emesa has still a monument and memorial of its 
strength, and of the vast expenditure of wealth and labour 
at which cities of Syria in ancient times were fortified or 
adorned. " The castle (see Plate) stands on a high, artifi- 
cial mound of earth, the sides of which were originally cased 
all round with masonry, rising in a steep slope, resembling 
the lower part of a pyramid. It was surrounded by a broad 
and deep ditch, lined also with a wall of stone. It is now 
entirely ruined."! The mound, faced with stone, is encom- 
passed by a fosse twenty feet deep and one hundred broad, 
over which is a bridge of several arches. The top of the 
hill may be half a mile in circumference. | 

The ruins of a very large convent, as seen by Pococke, 
part of the walls, the line of the streets, and the pedestals ot 
some columns at Restoun, seem to mark the site of the an- 
cient Arethusia.^ 

* Buckingham's Travels, p. 496, 497. t Ibid., p. 494. 

1 Mr. Robinson's Travels, vol. ii., p. 241. 

^ Pococke, p. 142. Irby and Mangles, p. 254. 

E E 2 



S30 



RUINS IN THE NORTH OF SYRIA, 



A few ruined habitations beside the castle Medyk, a mosque 
enclosed by a wall, and several columns scattered about, are 
supposed to occupy the site of Apamea, which, as a sister 
city, ranked with Antioch and Seleucia. 

Maarah, which stayed the march of Crusaders, and tempt- 
ed its victor to remain, has nothing but a khan or tempora- 
ry lodging-place to attract the notice of the passing travel- 
ler, and its towers and walls, razed to their foundations in 
the beginning of the twelfth century,* yet lie as they were 
cast down, level with the ground. A poor little village bears 
the name of Maarah. f A century ago were to be seen a 
beautiful square tower of hewn stone, and a little ruin of a 
very old church, not mentioned by recent travellers. J 

Between Maarah and Aleppo are several sites of ancient 
towns. The mountain of Richa is full of the ruins of cities.^ 
Near to the village of El-Bara are the ruins of what Mr. 
Drummond denotes a once glorious city, fully as large as 
Aleppo, and greatly superior to it in point of magnificence, 
as then appeared by the ruins. Here have been several 
churches highly ornamented, particularly one which was 
very large ; great numbers of columns were then to be seen, 
with many pyramidal monuments." In a grotto (or sepul- 
chre) near the ruins " was an episcopal figure with his cro- 
sier in his right hand, and on each side of him was an angel 
holding a laurel wreath in one hand and an olive-branch in 
the other. "II In the immediate vicinity of the town Burck- 
hardt met with a sepulchral cave with an inscrip- 
tion. The annexed figure, in relief, was over it. 
*' We saw," he adds, " the same figure, with vari- 
ations, over the gates of several buildings of these 
ruins ; the episcopal staff is found in all of them. 
The town walls on the east side are yet standing ; they are 
very neatly built with small stones. The ruins extend for 
about half an hour from south to north, and consist of a num- 
ber of public buildings, churches, and private habitations, the 
walls and roof of some of which are still standing."^ But 
the episcopal city, as it would seem to have been, though of 
unknown name, must have fallen greatly into decay since it 
was visited by Pococke and Drummond, for Burckhardt saw 
no building worth noticing except three tombs. AVhatever 
city it may have been, situated in a rugged mountain, the 

* See above, p. 178. t Mr. Robinson's Trav., vol. ii., p. 248. 

t Pococke, p. 144. ^ Burckhardt, p. 130. 

Jl Drummond's Trav,, p. 235. IT Burckhardt, p. 130, 131. 




BEYOND THE ANCIENT BORDERS OF ISRAEL. 831 



supposed seat of anchorites, the laurel and the olive-branch 
were there carved in vain in the hands of graven angels, 
and the city has met a fate of which these are not the em- 
blems. It has followed Chorazin. 

But, though the ruins near El-Bara might recently have 
shown that it had once been a city larger and more magnifi- 
cent than Aleppo, the ancient greatness of many cities of 
Syria, like the desolate Caesarea, cannot be judged of by what 
they are, nor can the richness of the ancient produce of the 
regions around them be known by what is now to be seen. 
Of these truths, the once famous Calchis, or Kinnesrin, may 
supply an illustration — one instance out of hundreds. 

Calchis, in remote ages the Zobah (Aram-Zobah) of the 
Hebrews, was the capital of the province of Calcidine, to 
which it gave its name. Its opulence and the fertility of 
the circumjacent territory are manifest by the tax or redeem- 
ing tribute which it paid to the Saracens, including, besides 
four hundred weight of silver and as much of gold, and two 
thousand robes of silk, five thousand ass-loads of figs and 
olives. " I surveyed its vestiges," says Mr. Drummond, " for 
I cannot call them ruins, as nothing like a house is seen 
standing ; though we found many great squared stones and 
foundations, particularly those of walls, which are nine [or, 
as stated by Pococke, about ten] feet thick, and occupy a 
great extent of space. The castle, or citadel, has covered 
a very large hill adjoining to the city, and was surrounded 
by a double wall."* AH is a confused heap of ruins. f 
"From the castle-hill we enjoyed a delightful view of the 
champaign country, extending to a prodigious distance all 
around ; but not one fiftieth part of it was cultivated. "| 
Difi^erent was the view in the sight of David, and afterward 
of Solomon, from the hill of Zobah, when the golden shields 
of the servants of Hadad-ezer lay at their feet, or were sus- 
pended in the palace of Jerusalem as a trophy of the victo- 
ry of Zion's king; and different, too, shall be the view from 
the hill of Zobah, when all the enemies of the Son of David 
shall be subdued before him, and the kingdom be restored 
to Israel, and Calcidine shall be given, not to the sons of 
Ishmael for a prey, but to the sons of Isaac in everlasting 
possession, for each man to sit under his own vine and under 
his fig-tree. 

* Dnimmond's Trav., p. 235. t Pococke, p. 149. 

t Drummond's Trav., p. 236, 



332 



RUINS IN THE NOETH OF SYRIA, 



Harem was a strong fortress in the days of the Crusaders, 
when it suffered many a fierce siege, and was the scene of 
many a bloody strife, as its possession was contested by the 
alternate lords of Syria. In last century, the remains of a 
palace and many good edifices, the castle upon the top of a 
hill, the ascent of which was paved with square hewn stones, 
a neat chapel excavated from the rock, a pretty belfry, and 
the remains of outworks surrounding the whole,* showed 
that it had been a residence worthy of princes, who often 
sought shelter within its walls. The frequent foundations 
and ruins of villages testify to the ancient populousness of 
the adjoining territory. We have seen how it resisted the 
assaults of the King of Jerusalem, and how many princes 
and nobles, with the King of Armenia, strove in vain to de- 
liver it when besieged by Noureddin. A different tale has 
now to be told ; and it has ceased, as it now is, to be " an 
agreeable place." " It is now," as described by Mr. Rob- 
inson, " a complete ruin, and the only place affording shel- 
ter was a stable, to obtain possession of which, we were 
obliged to turn out some poor gipsies, called here Kurphadh ; 
these Kurphadh are spread over the whole of Anadolia and 
Syria. We were sufficiently punished for this act of injus- 
tice by the restless night we spent, it being impossible to 
get any sleep, owing to the swarms of fleas which infested 
the place."! When visited by Mr. Buckingham in 1816, 
Harem was inhabited by about twenty Mohammedan fami- 
lies, governed by their own sheik. The castle stands on 
the summit of an oblong pyramidal mound, exactly like that 
of Homs, and like it, too, cased with stone in the sides. 
Near to Harem he saw a considerable number of scattered 
fragments of former buildings, and on an eminence near 
this stood the portion of a small font more complete. The 
base was formed of very large stones and good masonry, 
and in a lower doorway was a fine Roman arch still perfect. 
" On these foundations was erected a modern building, ap- 
pearing to have been deserted in an unfinished state ; for, 
though prepared for a pent roof, none had ever been put on 
it. Such trifling features are too characteristic of the coun- 
try and its government to be omitted; for here it may be 
said, with the strictest propriety, that he who begins to build 
a house knows not whether himself or another shall finish 
it, and that he who sows is not always sure of reaping. 

* Drummond's Trav., p. 182. t Robinson's Travels, vol. ii,, p. 272. 



BEYOND THE ANCIENT BORDERS OF ISRAEL. 333 



Large hewn blocks, some sculptured stones, &c., continued 
to line our road to nearly half a mile, and half an hour be- 
yond their discontinuance we passed through other ruins of 
a similar kind."* 

Corns, the Cyrrus of Ptolemy, and in later ages Kyros, 
a metropolitan see, of which Theodoret was bishop, was the 
capital of the province of Cyrrestice, in which were nine- 
teen cities. The ruined metropolis shows some signs that 
it was once a noble city. It stood upon the plain surface of 
a hill, the site of the castle being the summit of a higher. 
From the foundations of the walls that still remain, the cas- 
tle and the city seem to have been very large, walled very 
strongly with huge square stones. Within are observable 
the ruins, pillars, &c., of many noble buildings, among which 
it is doubtful if the cathedral be distinguishable. The whole 
is now in ruins. f There is reason to believe that every 
house was built of excellent well-polished square stones, 
which may be called a sort of marble. | One noble square 
building, of great capacity, was encompassed with good 
walls, having five gates. A noble row of pillars, of great 
length, led to another grand building, now of undefinable 
form. But there are the remains of a very superb theatre, 
built in good taste, the front of which extends to seventy- 
two yards. ^ 

Among the cities of Cyrrestice, Hierapolis had a place. || 
Strabo relates that Bambyce was called Hierapolis, and that 
Atargatis, the Syrian goddess, was worshipped there. ^ 
Pliny, in like manner, states that Bambyce was called by 
another name, Hierapolis, and by the Syrians Magog, where 
the monstrous Atargatis (prodigiosa Atargatis)** was wor- 
shipped, ft Of the once famous city of Bambyce, the chief 
scene of the worship of a heathen god or goddess, nothing 
but " miserable vestiges" are to be seen. But these show 
that it was full three miles in circumference, surrounded by 
walls extremely well built, of fine polished stone both inside 
and out, some parts of which, as seen by Pococke, then re- 
mained entire, nine feet thick, and above thirty feet high. 
The wall was defended by towers at the distance of fifty 

* Buckingham, p. 569. t Maundrell, p. 211. 

X Drummoiid's Trav., p. 201. ^ Ibid. II See above, p. {} [. 

IT r) Bai.i6vKri ' Icpav -noXiv koXovctlv, ev >/ nnwiXi tt]v Hvpiav Scov Ttjv ^ArapyaTiv. — 
Strabo, lib. xvi., p. 1062. 

So called, in all likelihood, from her monstrous form, the head of a woman and 
the body of a fish, the reputed mother of the gods. 

tt Plin., Nat. Hist., lib. v., p. 19. 



334 



RUINS IN THE NORTH OF SYRIA, 



paces from each other. The four gates of the city were 
about fifteen feet wide, and defended by a semicircular tow- 
er on each side. But here, as throughout the land, the Lord 
has made of a city a heap — of a defenced city a ruin. The 
few travellers who have visited it may doubt or dispute, as 
concerning Corns, about the site of a temple, or a theatre, 
or a pagan or papal altar. Its magnificence is gone, but 
the polished stones remain ; and although not only Ciiicia 
and Cappadocia, but even Arabia and Babylonia, contributed 
to the support of its magnificent temple, the Lord hath fam- 
ished Atargatis (Ashteroth), "the abomination of the Sido- 
nians," even as he will famish all the gods of the earth.* 
But the tribute may be turned to Israel at last, and all that 
remains of Bambyce, the polished stones of its walls, its 
temples, its theatres, and its houses, razed from their found- 
ations, may be formed into a city, which, like the horses' 
bells in .lerusalem, shall be holiness to the Loj'd,-f and Hi- 
erapolis (a holy city) be at last worthy of its name. 

Jerabees, on the banks of the Euphrates, which had prob- 
ably its name from the worship of the Syrian god Jerabolus, 
is now, like the very grave of idolatry, an oblong field of 
ruins, distinguished only by the higher elevation, as in oth- 
er idolatrous cities, of the supposed sites of a temple, church- 
es, or other public buildings,^ the fit monuments of a worship 
that, over all the world, shall perish forever, when the cities 
of Israel shall be raised again, and the Euphrates be the 
border of a land that shall then be a blessing in the midst of 
the earth.^ 

At Utch-Kilesi three churches are the ruins of houses 
which had once been edifices of some pretensions. Even 
in passing over an inhospitable district, the traveller con- 
stantly discovers traces of early Christianity — ecclesiastical 
and monastic edifices, often of great beauty ; remains of 
large villages, with deep cisterns and reservoirs hewn out of 
the solid rock.|| 

All that remains of the once celebrated city of Samoeisat, 
on the northeastern extremity of Syria, the seat of the King 
of Commagena, and an episcopal city in the Middle Ages, is 
a partly artificial mound, and the fragmentary remains of a 
castle on its summit. The modern town is a poor place of 
about four hundred houses. *[[ 



* Zech., ii.. 11. t Ibid., xiv., 20. t Pococke, p. 165, § Isa., xix., 24. 
II Ainsworth's Travels, vol. j., p. 286-7. IT Ibid., 285. 



BEYOND THE ANCIENT BORDERS OF ISRAEL. 3^5 



While, on the east of the Jordan, towns ruined or desert- 
ed have recently been disclosed to view in far greater num- 
bers than were ever recorded by Grecian or Roman geog- 
raphers, many cities were enumerated by them, or had 
their place in the lists of episcopal cities in Christian times, 
in other parts of Syria, of which the ruins have yet to be 
sought. These, utterly destroyed, exist now only in their un- 
dislinguishable or undiscovered ruins. But they shall rise 
— as they have fallen — at the word of the Lord. 

Besides the ruins specially noted in the preceding cursory 
view, the reader may have marked the uniform testimony 
which is borne to the fact that " the country is full of the sites 
of ruins, whether on the south of Judea, or on the coast of 
Phoenicia, or in the interior or the north of Syria ;" and if he 
compare the lists of ancient cities previously given, he will 
not fail to perceive that many a name still wants a spot to 
mark it, while ruins like those of El-Bara, and many heaps 
of unknown name, have lost their genealogy, or have not 
been identified with the cities of their origin. The less dis- 
tinguished that they are, of no note — as the ruins of Askelon 
"Were accounted till Ibrahim Pasha sought to restore a city, 
and as those of Caesarea appeared till Djezzar Pasha wanted 
beautiful marble columns to ornament a palace, and the port 
of Seleucia with the ruins of the city, not worth while to 
travel half an hour to see, till another pasha purposed its res- 
toration, and a modern engineer gave in an estimate — the 
cities because hid from view, and the ports because they 
were filled up, have lain secure in the dormancy of ages, to 
awaken at the same voice that bade them repose. The cities 
of the Haouran, constructed of the hardest stones, Vv'hich are 
bound together, though uncemented, with the firmness of a 
rock, have withstood the ravages of time, which has passed 
over them in the exposure of ages with the lightness of a 
painter's brush, and only tinged them with a fairer hue. But 
the cities on the other side of the Jordan, as the caverned 
but inexhaustible quarries and partial ruins show, were con- 
structed of stones varying from compact limestone, slightly 
shading into marble, as in the hills of Judea, to fine yellow 
freestone, of softer texture, as in the ruins near El-Bara ; 
and destined as they were both to fall and to be built again, 
their fractured walls have not stood exposed to a slow decay 
from age to age, but razed from their foundations, as the towns 
of Judea by the Romans, or cast down by earthquakes as by 

P 



836 RUINS IN THE NORTH OF SYRIA, 

the hand of the Lord, covered with thorns, and guarded by 
wild beasts, the last word of the Lord concerning them shall 
be true as all the rest ; and cities of Israel are yet ready at 
his voice to rise again, fresh as when they fell. 

For many generations desolations were to continue, yet 
there was an appointed term for them all, when the Lord would 
comfort Zion, and her cities, through 'prosperity, should finally 
he spread abroad.* He shall cause them that come of Jacob 
to take root. Israel shall blossom and bud, and fill the face 
of the world with fruit. Yet the defenced city shall be left, 
and the habitation forsaken, and left like a wilderness ; there 
shall the calf feed, and there shall he lie down, and consume 
the branches thereof.! " Upon the land of my people shall 
come up thorns and briers, yea, upon all the houses of joy 
in the joyous city. Because the palaces shall be forsaken, 
the multitude of the city shall be left ; the forts and towers 
shall be for dens forever, a joy of wild asses, a pasture for 
flocks, until the Spirit be poured upon us from on high. 
Then my people shall dwell in a peaceful habitation, and in 
sure dwellings, and in quiet resting-places. "| 

It is not, then, till the curses pass away, and the blessing 
come, when Israel shall take hold of the strength of his 
God,§ that we can look for the proof of what these cities 
were, or the evidence, save of faith, of what they still shall 
be. But we have seen some token of the ancient greatness, 
as well as of the vast number, of the cities that lay within the 
land of Israel as anciently possessed, and also vi^ithin the 
bounds of Solomon's dominion. 

Numerous these ruins manifestly are, as those of the cit- 
ies or towns of any land ; but fallen as they lie, the many 
once noble cities of Syria may be owned as such rather by 
the ancient records concerning them, than by looking on 
their graves overgrown with rank weeds, or searching for 
their ruins among thorns. The desolation to which they 
have been brought down is the visible issue of the iniquity 
with which the land was defiled ; and, as we have seen, 
enough is left to show the justice of the judgment, and to 
meet its cause, as announced in Scripture. And we may 
take a parting glance at these ruins, by looking for a moment 
on another city in its desolation, in which, as in Baalbec and 
Gerasa, enough is also left to show, as no other country can, 



* Zech., i., 17. 

X Ibid., xxxii., 13-15, or 18. 



t Isa., xxvii., 6, 10. 
Ibid., xxvii., 5. 



BEYOND THE ANCIENT BORDERS OP ISRAEL. SS? 



that cities of surpassing splendour once lay within the bounds 
of the kingdom of Israel. 

The greatest days which Rome in all her glory ever saw, 
were those in •which captive generals or kings were led in 
triumph through her streets, and the richest treasures and 
most splendid spoils were borne in procession before her 
victorious consuls or emperors. The greatest of these, as 
recorded in Roman annals, was that in which Zenobia gra- 
ced the triumph of Aurelian, and " the Queen of the East," 
who had reigned at Palmyra, bowed her neck beneath the 
yoke of Rome. The spectacle, which called forth the shouts 
of admiring citizens and slaves, was but the idle pageant of 
an hour. Not a fragment of her royal city could be trans- 
ferred to Rome. But its ruins yet remain, and hundreds of 
its columns are yet erect ; and when the way of the kings 
of the East shall be prepared, and the kingdonT^De returned 
to the daughter of Jerusalem, and the bands of her neck be 
loosed by the triumphant King who leads captivity captive, 
the ruins of Palmyra, whose fame has spread throughout the 
world, shall be an enduring monument of Israel's glory, 
while the voice of harpers and of trumpeters shall he heard no 
more, and the light of a candle shall shine no more at all^ in 
the city that triumphed over Jerusalem and Palmyra, and 
gloried greatly in the day of their fall. 

Palmyra not only lay within the borders of Solomon's 
kingdom, or of the proper heritage of Israel, but was also a 
city which he built ; and when the kingdom shall return, it 
doubtless shall be raised again. Its ruins, well known, need 
not be described ; but, having heard much from many a 
traveller of hewn stones in heaps where the cities of Israel 
stood, we may see them as they lie uncovered in Palmyra, 
or still reposing in its walls, as in those of the gate of Anti- 
och. The cities of Israel, whether cast down by earth- 
quakes or by the hand of man, fell not, like fractured walls, 
in useless pieces, in whose fragments the stones are imbed- 
ded as before, and unfit to be built up again, but the unce- 
mented stones lie singly, ready for the builder's hand. 

But the Lord will do better to Israel than at the begin- 
ning, and better than He did to Greeks or Romans in a land 
not theirs. A Protestant king, but of late, ignorant or for- 
getful, perhaps, that far more than a hundred cathedrals lie 
in ruins in Syria, boasted that the quarry would be opened 

* Bev., xviii., 23. 
F F 



33S 



RUINS IN THE NORTH OF SYRIA, 



again to renew the building of the cathedral of Cologne, sus- 
pended since the days of the Reformation ; but, though that 
shall be in vain, if experience deceive not, the owls and the 
bats shall not be scared in vain by the echoes awakened by 
many a resounding hammer breaking the long silence that 
has rested in all the quarries from end to end of the land of 
Israel, wherever ruins yield not hewn stones in sufficient 
abundance and perfection for the raising again of one and 
all of the cities that have fallen, and for enlarging tenfold 
those that still remain. 

True it is concerning the cities as concerning the land, 
that the glory of Jacob has been made thin, and the fatness 
of his flesh has become lean. Yet gleaning „grapes have 
been left in it, as the shaking of an olive-tree, two or three 
berries in the top of the uttermost bough, four or five in the 
outmost fruitful branches thereof, as said the Lord God of 
Israel. True it is that the strong cities have become as a for- 
saken houghs and an uppermost branch which ihey left, and 
there is a desolation. Yet, however cursorily we have sur- 
veyed the ruined cities within the chartered bounds of Isra- 
el's inheritance, in these very ruins there is as the gleaning 
of grapes when the harvest is done, two or three berries on 
the top of the uttermost bough, four or five in the outmost 
branches thereof. And even thus, com[>aring some rem- 
nants of ruins in Gerasa, Kanouat, Baalbec, and Palmyra, 
with the streets or edifices of the cities of any modern king- 
dom, may we not say that the gleaning of the grapes of 
Ephraim is better than the vintage of Eliezer : and may we 
not ask where, on any olive-tree fresh and in full bearing, 
are four or five berries to be seen, like those which hang on 
the outmost branches of the shaken olive of Israel ? And 
■what shall Israel be when the good olive-tree shall again 
blossom and bud, and bear fruit far richer than before — not 
for the renovation of cities only, but for the healing of the 
nations — and Israel's God shall be Israel's glory ? Then the 
monuments of a departed paganism and popery, first reared 
by those who trusted in the gods that could not save or in 
the intercessors that could not hear, shall be the antique orna- 
ments of the renovated cities of Israel, and Immanuel's land 
forever bear the trophies of his victory over the gods of the 
heathen, and over that wicked one whom He will yet de- 
stroy with the word of His mouth and with the brightness 
of his coming.* 

* Isa., xvii., 6. 



NATURAL FERTILITY OP JUDEA, ETC. 339 



CHAPTER XIL 

NATURAL FERTILITY OF JUDEA, AND OF THE NORTH OF 

SYRIA. 

When the Israelites were in the wilderness of Paran, 
Moses, at the command of the Lord, sent twelve men, one 
from each tribe, who were the heads of the children of Is- 
rael, to spy out the land; and he said unto them, Get you 
this way souihioard, and go up into the mountain^ and see the 
land what it is ; and the people that dwell therein, whether 
they be weak or strong, few or many, and what the land is that 
they dwell in, whether it he good or had ; and ivhat cities they 
be that they dwell in, whether in tents or in strongholds ; and 
what the land is, whether it be fat or lean, whether there be 
wood therein or not ; and bring of the fruit of the land. They 
came again, two of the men bearing upon a staff one cluster 
of grapes, and they brought of the pomegranates and figs, and 
they all testified that the land flowed with milk and honey, 
and that the cities were walled and very great * 

In the preceding pages we have seen something of the 
intermediate history and state of the land from that day to 
this ; and coming at last to espy the land from south to 
north, it is not, as an appropriate emblem of it all, that one 
cluster of grapes has to be cut down and to be borne on a 
staff between two. But single gleaning grapes, left after 
the vintage, may everywhere be gathered to show, bare and 
desolate as it is, what fruit the land has borne, and may yet 
bear again. 

The various features of its desolation, according to each 
and all the predicted judgments or curses of a broken cov- 
enant, which have come upon the land, the writer has else- 
where shown. The subject is now familiar to many, and 
the truth of the prophetic word is attested by each succeed- 
ing traveller who visits it. 

As connected with the Abrahamic covenant respecting 
the everlasting possession by his seed of their promised in- 
heritance, our proper theme here is the natural fertility and 
capability of high cultivation — notwithstanding the existing 

* Numbers, xiii., 1, 2, 17-28. 



NATURAL FERTILITY OP JUDEA, 



desolation — -of the land west of the Jordan and north of 
Dan, as previously we viewed that of the regions east of 
the Jordan. 

The hill-country of Judea^ which has been waste for ages 
past, as seen from the plain, with the face of bare rocks pre- 
sented to view, seems not only utterly desolate as soon as 
the suQimer's sun has scorched any partial vernal verdure, 
but absolutely sterile ; and great, as the author can testify, 
is the traveller's astonishment on contemplating the wild 
scene ; and he marvels how they could ever have been cov- 
ered with the shadow of the vine. They are as desolate 
or waste as the cities of Judah. The curse has lighted 
fearfully indeed, but equally on both. These hills want the 
grandeur of precipitous mountains, whose bare peaks and 
towering ridges set forth the sublimity of the works of God, 
till the mind is elevated as the mountain top penetrates the 
sky, and may well feel a trace of its own higher nature in 
the rising thought of Him who hath laid the foundations of 
the everlasting hills. The sublime in such a scene may 
fairly take the place of the beautiful, and awe, if it cannot 
captivate, the spectator. But the rounded yet rocky hills 
of Judea swell out in empty, unattractive, and even repul- 
sive barrenness (could their name be forgotten), with no- 
thing to relieve the eye or captivate the fancy ; and worthy 
they seem of being taken up in the lips of talkers, and of be- 
ing, as they have been, an infamy of the people.j The very 
labour expended on them of old completes their apparent 
sterile desolateness. Had they been left untouched by hu- 
man hands, the mark"' of infamy could not, in the natural 
course of things, as with other hills in a kindred clime, have 
been stamped upon them as it is. The sloping mountains, 
in their natural form, might have been clothed with nature's 
verdure, a fitting pasturage for sheep and goats ; or else, 
though tenanted by wild beasts, they might, however uncul- 
tivated, have been clothed in beauty like the mountains of 
Gilead, that lie on the opposite side of the valley. Bare 
though they had been, the winds of heaven and the birds of 
the air could scarcely have but carried seeds of wild flow- 
ers and fruit where there is soil sufficient for their growth, 
that the nakedness of the hills might have been wholly 
clothed, but that of the rocky wilderness of Judea. All is 
now alike a wilderness ; and covered as these mountains 

* Luke, i,, 39, 65. t Ezek., xxxvi., 3 



AND OF THE NOETH OF SYKIA, 



341 



are with terraces, whose bare fronts alone are to be seen, 
the bald hills, looked on at a short distance or from beneath, 
present at first sight one uniform aspect of sterility, which 
seems to bid defiance to cultivation, and to say that the 
blessings of God never rested, nor, without a miracle, could 
rest orra scene so desolate and repulsive. 

But they frown on every passer-by only because the 
Lord has frowned on them. And at the sight of them, 
blighted by the written curses of the covenant, which have 
been transferred from the book of the Lord to the mount- 
ains of Israel, the reflecting mind may be struck with a 
deeper awe than that which the grandest scenes of nature 
can inspire, which, speak as they may, cannot bring His 
voice so near, or tell more plainly what the Lord hath 
wrought, as these echoing mountains, like the voices of the 
dead from their graves, respond to every predicted judg- 
ment. Thus saitk the Lord. 

These words, which preface the judgments which have 
come in all their terribleness, preface also the promises 
which shall be fulfilled in all their truth; and the mountains 
of Israel have yet to respond to the voice of the Lord in a 
manner as different from what they now do, as the blessings 
of the new covenant differ from the curses of the old. 

Prophesy unto the mountains of Israel, and say, Ye mount- 
ains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord : thus saith the 
Lord God, Because the enemy hath said against you, Aha, 
even the ancient places are ours in possession, therefore 
prophesy and say, thus sailh the Lord God, Because they 
have made you desolate, and ye are taken up in the lips of 
talkers, and are an infamy of the people ; therefore, ye mount- 
ains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord God, Thus saith 
the Lord God to the mountains and to the hills, to the rivers 
and to the valleys, to the desolate wastes and to the cities that 
are forsaken, which became a prey and derision to the residue 
of the heathen that are round about you ; therefore thus saith 
the Lord God, I have lifted up mine hand, surely the heathen 
that are about you, they shall bear their shame. Biit ye, 
O mountains of Israel, ye shall shoot forth your branches, and 
yield your fruit to my people of Israel ; for they are at hand 
to come. For, behold, / am for you, and I will turn unto 
you, and ye shall he tilled and sown : and I will multiply men 
upon you, all the house of Israel, even all of it: and the 
cities shall be inhabited, and the wastes shall be builded ; 

F F 2 



342 



NATURAL FERTILITY OF JUDEA, 



and I will multiply upon you man and beast, and they shall 
increase and bring fruit : and I will settle you after your old 
estates, and will do hetfer unto you than at your beginnings : 
and ye shall know that I am the Lord. Yea, I will cause 
men to walk upon you, even my people Israel ; and they 
shall possess thee, and thou shalt be their inheritance. 
Neither will I cause men to hear in thee the shame of the 
heathen any more, neither shalt thou hear the reproach of 
the people any more. I will call for corn, and will increase 
it, and I will multiply the fruit of the tree, and the increase of 
the f eld ; and the desolate land shall be tilled, whereas it 
lay desolate in the sight of all that passed by. And they 
shall say, This land that was desolate is become like the gar- 
den of Eden; and the waste, and desolate, and ruined cities 
are fenced and inhabited. Then the heathen shall know 
that I the Lord plant that that was desolate : I the Lord 
have spoken, and I will do it."* 

The mountains of Israel have indeed been taken up in 
the lips of talkers, and have become an infamy of the peo- 
ple. Voltaire speaks of Palestine with derision, describes 
it as one of the worst countries of Asia, and says that it 
could only have been accounted fertile by those who had 
wandered forty years in the wilderness ; while at Beyrout 
the writer of these pages was told of one of his disciples, 
an infidel Frenchman, who a short time previously had 
landed there from Europe, on purpose to visit the land and 
mountains of Israel, that he might write a book to disprove 
utterly the scriptural accounts of their goodliness. His lips, 
like those of his master and many others besides, were those 
of a talker blaspheming the mountains of Israel. Not to 
satisfy himself had he come, for he well knew that the land 
reputed as the glory of all lands was a poor sterile country, 
one of the worst in Asia ; but that others might be convin- 
ced, and the world might be enlightened, he was going to 
see with his own eyes the nakedness of the land, and prove 
the falsehood of the scriptural records concerning it. He 
went ; but, entering the mountains, the extreme barrenness 
of which formed the fancied matter of his argument, the 
grand idea was dissipated at the sight, and the poor book, 
blighted in the conception, which, if it had been brought 
forth, was to have convinced the world, formed but the re- 
membrance of an idle dream. The talker's mouth wa? 

* Ezekiel, xxxvi., 4, 7-11, 12-15, 29, 30, 34-36, 



AND OF THE NORTH OF SYRIA. 



343 



closed, and the mute traveller returned literally silenced at 
the sight. Like the ruins of many cities, the hills of Judah 
are not what at first sight they seem, but a narrow inspec- 
tion shows what they have been and may speedily become. 
Neither Askelon nor Cassarea, nor the port of Seleucia, nor 
the princely Palmyra, are more ready for restoration than 
are those very hills that cannot be looked on without pain- 
ful melancholy now, to rejoice on every side so soon as the 
curses that have scathed them shall have been taken away, 
and the blessings of a belter covenant shall rest on the 
mountains of Israel. If the polished stones of ruined cities 
may well cry out for the coming of the time when, ceasing 
to be dens and caves for wild beasts,, they shall be raised 
into dwellings for righteous men in days of peace and bless- 
edness, so may the desolate hills of Judah, once clad with 
vines, but long scorched with an intenser heat than that of 
the burning sun, also cry out that these days may come 
when they shall cast off the briers and thorns that closely 
cover their terraced sides, and be clothed anew with vines, 
and pomegranates, and figs, and their infamy cease, and the 
stranger from a far land, no lying spy when speaking of 
their nakedness now, may longer ask wherefore hath the 
curse devoured the land ? why hath the Lord done thus 
unto the land ? 

The stones of Caesarea, and of numberless buildings in 
Palestine, are hewn or polished, but they lie as they fell, 
and no farther labour, as not needed, has been wrought on 
them. But the Word of the Lord concerning the mountains 
of Israel, when He shall turn unto them, and they shall not 
bear the shame of the heathen any more, promises better 
things than a mere renewal of their ancient fruitfulness. 
He will plant that that was desolate ; He will muUiply the 
fruit of the tree, and the increase of the field, and do heller 
unto them than at their beginnings. He hath spoken it, 
and He will do it. And the predicted desolations of many 
generations have, in respect both to the mountains and the 
plains, been converted into means of preparing the way for 
the blissful completion of the promise. 

In regard to their ancient fertility, the most obvious and 
abundant proofs may be adduced. The author has passed 
along the Rhone, the Rhine, the Neckar, and the Danube, 
where the terraced sides of the hills that skirt their banks 



344 



NATURAL 



FERTILITY OF JUDEA, 



form some of the finest vine districts of Europe, but nowhere, 
in any of them, has he seen continuous terraces at all to be 
compared in number or extent with those which, by their 
inultiplichy, astonish the traveller in the mountains of Isra- 
el. The largest number of successive terraces which he 
has anywhere else seen, covering for a short space the side 
of a hill (on the banks of the Rhine), was thirty-four. But 
the hill-country of Judea, with which the dreariest regions 
of the earth might now bear a comparison, is no sooner en- 
tered than a scene opens to view scarcely less marvellous 
than the kindred muhiplicity of the cities of Syria, and 
the magnificence of the greatest of its ruins. As these re- 
main to challenge the most splendid structure of modern 
cities, and as the frequency of ruins, betokening from their 
close vicinity what may be called congregated cities, is un- 
paralleled by that of modern towns in any kingdom, so there 
is not another hill-country of Europe which could now be 
said to drop down neiv wine, as that of Judea did, and, ac- 
cording to the Word of the liord, shall do again. In many 
places, and for many miles in extent, it is terraced through- 
out. On reaching it, the astonishment previously excited at 
the sight of barren mountains, seemingly unsusceptible of 
culture, is changed into still greater amazement at the sight 
of steep hills, converted into very numerous horizontal beds, 
rising successively till the top of the mountain forms the 
last, and ranging continuously on both sides of the valleys 
till every spot is embraced within them, from end to end, 
and from the summit to the base. The first hill on which 
the writer narrowly looked was of a conical form, wholly 
encircled with successive terraces, which doubtless repaid 
the immense labour of their construction by a vintage or a 
kindred produce, which no plain within a like circumference 
could even equal. After having passed through a long val- 
ley, terraced on both sides, the extremity of which was en- 
closed, as if by a widespread amphitheatre of terraced hills, 
on ascending a mountain pass he counted sixty-seven ter- 
races, which occupied successively the whole side of the 
hill, while considerably higher mountains were manifestly 
terraced all over by a proportionally greater number. 

The idea, as expressed in the Evidence of Prophecy, 
which the author had previously formed of these terraces, 
was, that the soil had been accumulated with astonishing 
labour, as stated by Dr. Clarke, and the impression on his 



AND OF THE NORTH OF SYRIA. 



345 



mind was that it had been carried from the rich plains be- 
neath. In some instances they seemingly have thus been 
rendered productive, where the projecting calcareous rock, 
of which these mountains consist, afforded no space for soil 
prior to the formation of terraces ; and in some such cases 
it is observable that the terrace, or top of the rock, when 
cut, inclined into the mountain, or downward, for the better 
retaining, perhaps, the moisture and the soil. But, in gen- 
eral, so far as witnessed, with comparatively nnnoticeable 
exceptions, the soil is that of the hill-country itself ; and on 
raising some large stones, they were found to be imbedded 
in rich dark earth, a sharp light soil best adapted for the 
vine, more than a foot in ascertained depth. In ancient 
times, the numberless terraces, on which such astonishing 
labour has been expended, even without the accumulation 
of soil, doubtless lacked not a sufficiency to cover the now 
barren mountains with fruit for the people Israel, when the 
scene must have been as beauteous as now it is blasted, and 
as fertile as now it is desolate. On inspecting the terraces, 
the marvel is not, as when the hills are approached, how 
they could ever have been crowned with plenty, but how 
they could have lain so long and so utterly desolate ; and 
just as the labour would now be little to build a city of hewn 
stones lying ready on the spot, so the labour would now be 
comparatively less, not by a tenth, not by a hundredth, or 
sometimes not even by a thousandth part of what it origi- 
nally was, to make the vines and other fruit-trees shoot forth 
their branches and yield their fruits, were the good time of 
the God of Israel come to turn again to the mountains of Is- 
rael. 

Whether in the poorest or tbe richest regions of the land, 
terraces everywhere abound in places where the form of 
the hills suited their construction, and the produce was there- 
by ameliorated or increased in an inconceivable degree. 

" Even in these parts," says Dr. Robinson, " where all is 
now desolate, as in the rugged sloping mountains between 
Jerusalem and the Dead Sea, which present nothing but 
an aspect of dreary desolation, there are everywhere traces 
of the hands of the men of other davs — terraces, walls, stones 
gathered along the paths, frequent cisterns, and the like. 
Most of the hills exhibit the remains of terraces built up 
around them, the undoubted sites of former cultivation."* 

* Robinson and Smith, ii., 187. 



S46 



NATUHAL FERTILITY OP JUDEA, 



The city of Samaria, situated on an oblong isolated hill at 
the head of the fat valley, trusted in its strength, and gloried 
in its riches. Purchased, as was the hill on which it stood, 
by Omri of Shemer, it is reserved, like all the mountains of 
Samaria, and the land over which it reigned, as the free gift 
of the Lord to his people Israel. The beasts of the field, 
according to the Word of the Lord, now feed on the grassy 
terraces which encircle the hill, like beds of down, all ready 
for cultivation ; but, like those around it, whose terraced 
sides formed hanging gardens beautifully closing in the rich 
valley, they are yet reserved for their primitive use and for 
their ancient occupants ; for in the same chapter in which 
the prophet announces the new covenant which the Lord 
will make with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 
it is written, The virgin of Israel shall yet plant vines upon 
the mountains of Samaiia : the planters shall plant and eat 
them as common things. For, saiih the Lord, I am a Father 
to Israel, and Ephraim is my first-lorn.'^ They shall pos- 
sess the fields of Samaria. t Beyond the hills of Judea and 
the mountains of Samaria, and the ancient borders of the 
land in which the Israelites dwelt, " in the Lebanon of the 
Druses and the Maronites, the rocks, now abandoned to fir- 
trees and brambles, present us," says Volney, " in a thou- 
sand places with terraces, which prove that they were infi- 
nitely better cultivated and much more populous than in our 
days." The hills near Baalbec were anciently covered with 
vines ; and in the daj^s of Strabo, Laodicea on the coast, 
near to the extremity of the promised land, chiefly supplied 
Alexandria with its abundant wines, the vineyards in its vi- 
cinity then reaching almost to the very summits of the hills. 

If we return again from the north of Syria to the south of 
Judea, and look from end to end of the X^nA, gleaning grapes, 
though no more, may be found throughout it when the vin- 
tage is past ; and the terraces, with few exceptions, are bare 
and bereft of all but the creeping thorns, which closely cov- 
er them and conceal the soil, while the rocky fronts are ex- 
posed to view. 

The spies who went up from the wilderness of Zin to 
search the land whether it was good or bad, ascended by 
the south, and, after traversing it, came to Hebron : and the 
vale of Hebron, near to the cave of Machpelah, may yet, in 

* Jeremiah, xxxd., 5. t Obadiah, 19. 



AND OF THE NORTH OF SYRIA. 



347 



the largeness and excellence of its grapes, outvie the envi- 
rons of Bourdeaux, and the richest spots on the banks of the 
Rhine or of the Rhone. They still abound in the gardens 
near to the burying-place of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, 
and cluster in all their native richness there, as if waiting 
the time when the covenant made with these patriarchal 
fathers shall be fulfilled, and when their children, faithful 
like themselves, shall drink new wine in another and better 
kingdom than the world has seen since the weeping parents 
of the human race, cast out of paradise, first tilled the earth 
that had been cursed for their sakes. Immense bunches of 
grapes, unripe, and not of full size, intermingled with the 
bright flowers of the pomegranate, hung over the fences of 
the vineyards of Hebron when passed by the writer and the 
friends who accompanied him, who were there informed that 
these gardens sometimes produced bunches of grapes, when 
fully ripe, of six pounds' weight ; and on a succeeding day, 
Sir Moses Montefiore got a bunch of grapes about a yard in 
length.* On a plain near to Hebron, supposed to be that of 
Mamre, stands, pre-eminent among other trees, one which 
bears the name of Abraham's oak, that yet remains as a wit- 
ness of the goodliness of the land. The circumference of 
its trunk, as carefully measured, is twenty-two feet nine 
inches, and where the branches separate, twenty-five feet 
nine inches. It spreads nearly equally around to a great 
extent, the circumference of its branches being two hundred 
and fifty-six feet, and the diameter, from their opposite ex- 
tremities, eighty-one feet, thus covering an area of about five 
hundred square yards. 

Tadmor and Baalbec, built by Solomon, though fallen, 
are magnificent in their ruins ; but the pools of Hebron and 
the pools of Solomon, most substantially and finely construct- 
ed, are yet entire. The former has ever watered the city 
vi^here David first reigned ; and slight repairs of the aque- 
duct by Mehemet Ali have made the water to flow from the 
latter, a distance of six miles, to the city where his throne 
was finally established. The larger pool of Hebron is a 
hundred and thirty-three feet on each side — nineteen hun. 
dred and forty-three square yards of superficial extent — and 
its depth above twenty feet. Of the pools of Solomon, the 
average length of the first is three hundred and eighty-four 
feet, the breadth two hundred and thirty-two, and the depth 

* Narrative, p. 246. 



348 



NATURAL FERTILITY OF JUDEA, 



twenty-five feet. Of the second, the length is four hundred 
and twenty-five feet, and the average breadth two hundred 
and four. Of the third, the length is five hundred and eighty- 
three feet, and the average breadth one hundred and seventy- 
five. These have not continued entire for so many ages 
merely to suit the purpose of the Pasha of Egypt, the tem- 
porary lord of Palestine, or to supply water to Gentiles that 
tread Jerusalem under foot. 

Some cultivated spots scattered throughout the land, in the 
vicinity of a town or village protected by a Turkish governor 
or an Arab sheik, still show what the vine-clad hills of Is- 
rael were, and what they are yet destined to be ; and more 
delicious fruits may yet be found in that desolate land than 
wealth can command or art produce in less genial climes ; 
and grapes and other fruits may still be gleaned, which put 
to shame the best artificial vineries of England, 

The village of Kurieh, in the mountains, on the way from 
Gaza to Jerusalem, is imbosomed among olives, pomegran- 
ates, and large fig-trees, a solitary palm rising above the 
cluster. Many of the terraces are finely cultivated, showing 
what these mountains might speedily become.* Near Ku- 
loneah, on the same road, about five miles distant from Je- 
rusalem, figs, olives, and vines have resumed their place on 
many terraces ; and the bottom of the valley, though stony, 
exhibits all the richness and beauty of a land once the gar- 
den of the Roman Empire. It is, so far as cultivated, an or- 
chard of fruit-trees, intermingled with vineyards, in which 
vines, figs, olives, pomegranates, peaches, &c., conspire, in 
rich luxuriance, to show what fruit Judea can produce 
wherever it is recultivated, even where the ground is very 
stony, while many far larger, and naturally far richer valleys, 
and hills alike terraced throughout, are utterly waste. 

We cannot pass by the waste places around Jerusalem 
without looking to a more sure augury of a plenteous prod- 
uce and a returning glory than that of the fairest flowers 
or the richest fruit. Desolation has indeed come up upon 
the land, and environed the now feeble walls of Jerusalem. 
The hills around it are waste. Upon them, except occasion- 
ally, and partially along the valleys at their base, there is 
scarcely a field that is ploughed, except that, according to 
the Word of the Lord, which Zion itself has become. In 
the bottom of the 4eep valley of Jehoshaphat, over the brook 

* Narrative, p. 164, 




I 




I 



AND OF THE NORTH OF SYRIA. 



349 



Kedron, large and venerable olive-trees keep their place in 
the garden of Gethsemane, once stained with that blood 
which shall redeem from the curse the land, the people, 
and the world. A few trees are thinly scattered over the 
mount, whose name still tells that it was once, in truth, the 
Mount of Olives. " The Lord shall comfort Zion : He will 
comfort all her luaste places ; and he will make her wilder- 
ness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord ; 
joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving and 
the voice of melody."* " Break forth into joy, sing togeth- 
er, ye loaste places of Jerusalem, for the Lord hath comfort- 
ed his people, He hath redeemed Jerusalem."! Jerusalem 
will be more appropriately our theme in treating — at anoth- 
er time, if God will — on the covenant with David. It is not 
from the waste places around it, nor from a city often visit- 
ed by plague, oppressed by strangers, and trodden down of 
the Gentiles, that any shadow can be seen of the eternal ex- 
cellency which the Lord will make it, nor can any sound be 
there heard of the joy into which its waste places shall break 
forth when the Lord shall make it also the dwelling of peace 
and the joy of many generations. J But the God of Jerusa- 
lem shall therefore be glorified the more. The record is 
plain, and the truth is clear, and the word of our God abi- 
deth forever. He is ever mindful of his covenant ; and pre- 
fixed to these glorious things that are written concerning Je- 
rusalem is this command to Israel, " Look unto Abraham 
your father, and unto Sarah that bare you : for I called him 
alone, and blessed him, and increased him. For the Lord 
shall comfort Zion,"^ &c. 

The two plates here inserted, from the engravings illus- 
trative of the work on Syria of the able and worthy Schubert, 
give a view of Jerusalem from the south and from the north. 
In the former. Mount Zion and Mount Moriah, between it 
and the valley of Jehoshaphat, are distinctly marked, togeth- 
er with t^iat valley itself, and the Mount of Olives, on the 
east of Jerusalem. In the other, an ampler view is given of 
the waste places around it. (See Plates.) 

The view of the site of Solomon's gardens shows how ut- 
terly desolate the fairest portions of Palestine have become, 
while a few fig and olive trees are, like many others in like 
patches, spread over the land, the memorialists of a depart 
ed glory, and the heralds of a greater than that of Solomon, 

* Isaiah, li., 3, t Ibid., lii., 9. t Ibid,, Ix., 15. I) Ibid , li., 

Go 



350 



NATURAL 



FERTILITY OF JUDEAj 



About twelve miles north of Jerusalem stood the great 
city of Gibeon, now the poor village of Ei-Jib. The natu- 
ral fertility of the country around it, together with its ter- 
raced hills, was worthy of a royal city. The bare fronts of 
the close terraces of a steep mountain, as seen from beneath, 
present to view little or nothing but stones or rocks, and ten 
or twelve olives are the only relief to the eye in surveying a 
seemingly sterile hill. But the whole was terraced, and yet 
awaits the time when it shall bud forth anew. Another hill 
of similar appearance was partially cultivated. The terra- 
ces were filled with fruit, as all those of Israel yet shall be : 
and the stony mountain side, as it seemed, till cultured anew, 
was transformed into a rich hanging garden. The green 
and close foliage of the branches which the mountain shot 
forth, vines being entwined round fig-trees and pomegran- 
ates, wholly hid the frowning rock from view, and presented 
a smiling vineyard in its stead. In all the higher ground 
desolation towered over it, and every empty terrace spoke of 
a curse yet unremoved ; but the base of the mountain, in 
one beauteous spot, formed a vineyard and a garden, which, 
were it not unweeded from the budding of the blossom to the 
ripening of the fruit, would be still worthy of Israel, and 
show how the land shall become like the garden of Eden. 

Farther on the way from Jerusalem to Samaria, in pass- 
ing through the terraced hills of Ephraim, now at best a pas- 
ture for flocks, but more generally the resort of wild beasts, 
partial spots are to be seen, as near the village of Ain Jeh- 
rub, covered with vines and other fruit-trees. In an ampler 
space the valley of Mazrah shows how the bare and bleak 
terraces were once luxuriantly clothed, and in passing 
through it the traveller forgets that he sojourns in a desolate 
land. All along the declivities of the opposite hills, and in 
the bottom of the valley, thousands of fig and olive trees, and 
seemingly in the distance vines, wholly cover the.terraces, 
and, though untouched by the pruner's knife, and left to Na- 
ture's care, a rich orchard spreads everywhere around. 

Beyond it the valley of Lebonah, partially cultivated, is 
surrounded by terraced hills, mostly bare and waste — a 
blighted paradise. There, as of old, it may be seen — where 
men go to the place which was in Shiloh, where the Lord set 
his name at the first — what the Lord hath done to it and to 
the land, because of the wickedness of them that dwell 
therein : yet even there none can look on the environs of ^ 



AND OF THE NORTH OF SYRIA. 351 

village, or on the terraces ranged in order on the surround- 
ing hills, without seeing what the Lord shall yet do for Is- 
rael, when his name shall be set up at the last in Jerusalem, 
and the covenant of peace shall be established with his peo- 
ple. 

Sihor, with its lonely vale, whose inhabitants came forth 
to see Jesus, and many of whom, without a miracle but that 
of grace, believed on him there, has hitherto, in a great 
measure, escaped the curse which has lighted on the cities 
that would not hear the messenger of the Lord. Groves of 
olives, orchards, and gardens are intermingled with fields of 
corn, as if the hill of Gerizzim, at the foot of which it stands, 
yet echoed some of the blessings which Joshua read, while 
all the curses, taken up by the four winds of heaven, have 
spread over the land. Almonds, oranges, pomegranates, 
olives, figs, peaches, dates, may all be gathered in a single 
spot ; and as they successively ripen, the ground is literally 
covered with fruit. The place where Abraham was first 
stayed on reaching Canaan, and where Jesus held not his 
hands as among Israelites to an unbelieving people, is a well 
watered garden, and thus a token of what the land shall be 
when the day that Abraham saw afar off and was glad shall 
come, and all the renovated cities of the land shall know 
that Jesus is the very Christ. In speaking as all the proph- 
ets spake of that glorious consummation, the mountains of 
Ephraim and Samaria were not forgotten any more than 
those of Judah. Less blighted than these, they are in many 
places covered with rich pasture ; and the terraced mount- 
ains of Samaria, like that on which its capital stood, need 
no more than the planting of vineyards, that the shoutings 
of the vintage, that long have ceased, may return. They 
too cry out for the completion of the promises of the God 
of Israel. Thou shall yet plant vines upon the 7nountains of 
Samaria; the planters shall plant, and shall eat them as com- 
mon things. For there shall be a day that the watchmen upon 
Mount Ephraim shall c?y, Arise, and let us go up to Z/on, to 
the Lord our God. For thus saith the Lord, sing with glad- 
ness for Jacoh, and shout among the chief of the nations : 
publish ye, and praise ye, and say, O Lord, save thy people, 
the remnant of Israel. Behold, I ivill bring thee, and gather 
thee, saith the Lord ; for I am a father to Israel, and Ephra- 
im is my first-horn,^ 

* Jer., xxxi., 5-9. 



352 



i>rATURAL FERTILITY OF JUDEA, 



The glory of Jacoh has indeed waxed thin, but some ves- 
tiges may thus still be seen of what it was : and other ex- 
ceptions to the general desolation that has come over the 
mountains of Israel have been marked in various directions 
by passing travellers. The land has enjoyed its Sabbaths, 
and has rested for ages ; but, like that of fallowed or long- 
pastured fields, its rest has not been in vain. Its unproduc- 
tiveness in produce for man during centuries past has pro- 
gressively increased ; and instead of being reduced by un- 
ceasing cropping, the soil has been accumulating from gen- 
eration to generation. The terraces are so constructed that 
they act as filters, and the mould, instead of being washed 
down the sides of the hills by the earlier and latter rains, 
has not only been retained, but has received new accessions 
by the annual decay of the rank grass, or the thickset 
thorns, and briers, and thistles, which grow in confirmation 
of the threatened curse, and in preparation for the promised 
blessing. The substance that is in it is not wasted, but in- 
creased. The wild produce, often impenetrable in its rank- 
ness, has kept the mountains in continued manure ; and the 
strangers who have boasted that the mountains of Israel 
were given unto them for a possession, by the very act of 
extirpating the vines and destroying the vineyards, have 
made way for a produce that could not profit them, but 
which unceasingly deposited on the surface of the soil the 
substance which the roots of the thorns drew from the in- 
terstices of the rocks. The terraces, as it were, are carpet- 
ed all over with low thorny plants, covered with thick prick- 
ly leaves, which turn aside the foot of the intruder, and pay 
all their tribute to a land which a blessing yet awaits, till 
Jacob become an inheritor of his own mountains again. 
The desolations of many generations, during which the 
mountains of Israel have been always waste, have not pass- 
ed unprofitably for Israel, though unproductively to aliens. 

While the hills of Judah and of Ephraim have been rest- 
ing and gathering strength in their repose, labour, where 
needful, has been called into exercise in other lands than 
those which the Israelites anciently possessed, in preparation 
for the time when they shall enlarge the place of their tent, 
and stretch forth the curtains of their habitations. The peo- 
ple who have dwelt within their inheritance, driven from 
the fertile plains that needed no culture to promote their fer- 
tility, have not been idle in other mountains where their la* 



AND OF THE NORTH OF SYRIA. 



353 



hour would finally be profitable to the rightful possessors of 
the land. 

Dan lay on the south of Lebanon, which, though all in- 
cluded in the promised heritage, formed no part of the land 
in which the Israelites dwelt. But the Lord will bring his 
people into the land of Lebanon* and there the preparation 
for their entering seems to be completed, and the day may 
be at hand when it shall be said, Is it not yet a very Utile 
while and Lebanon shall be tmiied into a fertile feld.\ 

" The country of Kesrouan (northeast of Beyrout)," says 
Burckhardt, " presents a most interesting aspect ; on the 
one hand are steep and lofty mountains full of villages and 
convents, built on their rocky sides, and on the other a fine 
bay, and a plain of about a mile in breadth, extending from 
the mountains to the sea. There is scarcely any place in 
Syria less fit for culture than the Kesrouan, yet it has become 
the most populous part of the country. The quantity of silk 
produced annually amounts to about three hundred and thir- 
ty hundred weight English. The extraordinary extortions 
of the government are excessive. "| 

" On the summit and on the eastern side of Anti-Libanus 
(between Damascus and Baalbec) there are many spots af- 
fording good pasturage. It abounds also in short oak-trees. 
The monastery of Mar-Elias has extensive grape and mul- 
berry plantations, and on the river side a well-cultivated 
garden. The town of Zahle is surrounded by vineyards, || 
The terraces in the vicinity of the convent are covered with 
vines,*[[ as recently seen and painted by Colonel Macniven. 
Though few in number compared to those of the mountains 
of Israel, which often embrace the whole sides of successive 
valleys to the very summits of the hills, the view of them as 
in the plate may convey to the reader some idea of the la- 
bour expended in ages past in preparation for the fulness of 
the covenanted promises to Israel. 

Nothing can be more striking than a comparison of the 
fertile but uncultivated districts of Bekaa and Baalbec, with 
the rocky mountains in the opposite direction, where, not- 
withstanding that Nature seems to afford nothing for the 
sustenance of the inhabitants, numerous villaoes flourish, 
and every inch of ground is cultivated. Bshirrai is sur- 
rounded with fruit-trees, mulberry plantations, vineyards, 

* Zechariah, x., 10. t Isaiah, xxix., 17. i Burckhardt, p. 182-187, 188, 
6 Ibid., p. 20, 21. II Ibid., p. 7. 1 Ibid., p. 7. 

G G 2 



854 



NATURAL FERTILITY OF JUDEA, 



fields of dhouna, and other corn, though there is scarcely a 
natural plain twenty feet square. The inhabitants, with 
great industry, build terraces to level the ground, and pre- 
vent the earth from being swept down by the winter rains, 
and at the same time to retain the water requisite for the 
irrigation of their crops. Water is very abundant, as streams 
from numerous springs descend on every side into the Ka- 
desha, whose source is two hours distant from Bishinai. 

In journeying from Hamah to Tripoli, Burckhardt pass- 
ed the village of Mashegad, in the neighbourhood of which 
are large plantations of mulberry-trees, which are watered 
by numerous rivulets descending on all sides from the mount- 
ain into the valley, and as few of them dry up in summer, 
it must be a delightful residence during the hot season. 
Travelling from thence for an hour and a half, he reached 
the village of Soueida, near to v/hich were some plantations 
of mulberry-trees. Between it and Nyshaf, a considerable 
village, with large plantations of the same tree, are several 
ruined castles. Near it, at Shennyn (an Anzeyry village), 
the declivity of the mountains is covered with vineyards 
growing upon narrow terraces. On the top of the mountain 
is fine pasturage, with several springs. The romantic val- 
ley of Rovvyd is full of mulberry and other fruit-trees. 
Crossing the wady at the foot of the mountain, he contin- 
ued along its right bank on the slope of the mountain, through 
orchards and fields, till he reached the foot of the mountain 
upon which Kalaat-el-Hopn is built. From thence he de- 
scended to the convent of Mar Djordjos, which has large 
vine and olive plantations in its neighbourhood.* 

In crossing the mountains from Tripoli to Baalbec, some 
rich and beautiful scenes were seen and described by Mr. 
Buckingham. From the summit of Jebel Armeto, "the 
whole of the plain below, with the deep valleys which in- 
tersect it, look beautiful, presenting corn-lands of the fresh- 
est green, bare patches of ploughed land, showing a deep- 
red soil, and olive-trees and streams of water in abundance."! 

The valley of Khezheyah was watered with a fine stream, 
and presented on all sides marks of active industry. In the 
valley were two or three small villages, the ground about 
which was laid out in narrow slips or terraces, raised one 
above another, in which were planted corn, olives, vines, 
and mulberries, and the inaccessible parts were covered 

* Burckhardt, p. 154, 155, 157, 159, 160. f Buckingham, p. 468. 



AND THE NORTH OF SYRIA. 



355 



with pines and wild shrubs, among which were some fine 
springs of excellent water. From thence he passed into a 
second valley, which was of the most romantic kind, being 
hemmed in on all sides by lofty cliffs of overhanging rocks, 
so as to remind one of the happy valley of Rasselas. The 
steep sides of the valley were laid out in cultivated terraces 
as before, and the whole presented a most interesting pic- 
ture.* Ascending to the highest summit of Lebanon, he 
passed an elevated plain well covered with grain, before 
reaching the village of Eden, where the whole ground, val- 
ley, hill, and plain, was cultivated with great industry, and 
promised a harvest of abundance. The famous cedars stand 
at the foot of the ridge, which forms the highest peak of Leb- 
anon. Several of the largest are from 10 to 12 feet in diam- 
eter at the trunk, with branches of a corresponding size ; each 
of them like large trees extending outward from the parent 
stock, and overshadowing a considerable space of ground. t 

From the plain of Mamre to the heights of Lebanon, bor- 
dering on the eternal snow, it may thus be seen what trees 
in all its varied climes the promised land of Israel can bear. 

In journeying from Homs to Tartoos, or across the hill- 
country that lies between Lebanon and the entrance into 
Hamath, and again in repassing them farther to the north, 
from Laodicea to Antioch, Mr. Buckingham passed still rich- 
er and lovelier scenes. The hills near Hussu were culti- 
vated to their summits with corn and olives, which, added 
to the fertility of the plain itself, its light green fields, and 
darker lines of trees, presented as rich and beautiful a pic- 
ture as he had seen in the country, though he had visited 
Gilead.J We continued for about three hours through a val- 
ley, enjoying a succession of the most beautiful views. The 
landscape to the north presented successive beds of gentle 
hills, with a profusion of wood.§ Entering the country of 
the Neyzery Arabs (anciently of the Zemarites or Arkites), 
" one side," he says, " was through one continued park of in- 
describable beauty ; and, although chiefly over level ground, 
yet by the profusion of its wood, and here and there some 
gentle eminences, the landscape varied at every point of 
view. The state of agriculture was here, too, more perfect 
and more flourishing than we had hitherto seen it elsewhere. 
The fields were free from wood and stones, and many of 



* Buckingham's Travels among the Arab Tribes, p. 469, 470. 

t Ibid., p. 475, 476. t Ibid., p. 503. t) Ibid., p. 508. 



356 



NATURAL 



FERTiLiTY 



OF JUDEA, 



them were enclosed by light fences of twig work. Some of 
the barley was nearly ripe for the perennial harvest, and 
other grounds were tilling by four ploughs in succession, 
each followed by a sower distributing the grain from a bas- 
ket for the autumnal one. Fine fat cattle were seen in nu- 
merous herds, with some few buffaloes among them, and all 
wore an appearance of wealth, activity, and abundance. 
We thought it remarkable, therefore, that in all our way from 
Hussu hence we had not yet seen a village of any size, hav- 
ing passed only a few hamlets scattered about on the hills, 
until about three o'clock we passed through one called Yah- 
moora, where there are extensive ruins."* 

The mountains of Amanus, which, from the northern por- 
tion of the promised land, are rich in cedars and in pines, 
&LC., and in many places abound with fruit as well as forest 
trees — vestiges, among many others, of " high civilization" 
in ancient times — show what the farthest borders of the land 
may yet be, and how Israel may look, in gratitude, if not in 
pride, from the top of Amana. That mountain chain, linking 
the Mediterranean to the Euphrates, preserves to its utmost 
bounds the character of the land, which no hand of man can 
touch, a land of hills and valleys, a land of brooks of water, 
of fountains and depths, that spring out of valleys and hills. 
On the one extremity of Amanus we have seen the valley 
of the Orontes, which forms the entrance into Hamath, than 
which a lovelier might long be sought for in vain ; and on the 
other, instead of irreclaimable waste-like mountains in more 
northern regions, the Nezib hills, northwest of Beer, are cel- 
ebrated for their olive groves. f Another illustration of their 
conjoined richness and beauty may be drawn from another 
spot, while in the vestiges of what these regions have been 
may be seen the tokens of what they again shall become. 

" Nothing can be more beautifully picturesque," says Mr. 
Robinson, " than the banks of the Beilan Sou ; the height 
here being often abrupt, and well clothed with trees, at pres- 
ent (April 2) in full blossom. Down their sides several 
tributary rivulets fall into the river, and descend in pretty 
cascades from rock to rock towards the sea. Here and 
there are isolated cottages, with patches of cultivated soil 
attached to them, from which the green corn is now spring- 
ing up. I In travelling through these beautiful regions, one 



* Buckingham, p. 507, 508. t Ainsworth's AssjTia, p. 292. 

t Robinson's Travels in Syria, vol. ii., p. 286. 



AND OF THE NORTH OF SYRIA. 357 

is struck with the magnificence of some of the kbans, aque- 
ducts, and other works of public utility, denoting a state of 
great prosperity and high civilization, which everywhere 
present themselves ; but, though these monuments at the 
present day exhibit the marks of a long-standing neglect, 
no timely repairs are made, and the work of destruction is 
allowed to continue, as if they belonged to no one, and that 
the soil was bereft of its rightful owners."* 

Its rightful owners are the Israelites, and it will not al- 
ways be bereft of them. Israel, the restorer of cities to 
dwell in, is not yet on his way. The Jews acting around 
the exchanges of Europe, and trampled on as they have 
been in ages past, kingdoms are now^ their creditors. The 
time in their history seems past, or fast passing away, when 
no man could lift up his head ; and were they now to return, 
some of them would be taken from among i/ie chief men of 
the earth. At present, per centage is their attraction among 
the Gentiles ; and they cling to the stocks like needles to 
a magnet. But were public credit to be affected, and the 
magnetic influence to be destroyed, and were a way prepa- 
red for their return to the land of their fathers, those infidel 
Jews who, in great numbers throughout German}^ now for 
the first time in their history, deny that their race shall re- 
turn, freed from the bonds that link them to the land of the 
Gentiles, might find their strongest attraction in the land 
which they too at last begin to despise ; for, whenever se 
curity of possession can be attained, where does per cent- 
age rank higher among the exchanges of Europe than in a 
purchased strip of land at the foot of Amanus ? " There 
is a strip of land on the banks of the Orontes which is de- 
voted to the cultivation of the culinary vegetables peculiar 
to Turkey, badinjan (egg-plant), bamijah, and capsicum. 
Ibrahim Pasha had purchased this for sixty purses, or three 
hundred pounds, and farmed it out. It probably yielded 
more than two hundred pounds a year to the proprietor."! 
Before turning from the mountains of Israel, which have 
been a derision, may we not ask, What would not the whole 
land yield were it to overflow with the multitude of men 
which shall yet cover it, when the desolate wilderness, in 
which such gleaning grapes are left, shall become like the 
garden of Eden ? 



* Robinson's Travels in Syria, vol. ii., p. 288. 
f Ainsworth's Assyria, vol. ii., p. 95, 96. 



358 



NATURAL FERTILITY OF JUDEA, 



For the farther solution of this question, we must look 
from the mountains to the still richer plains, which lie to the 
west as to the east of the Dead Sea and the Jordan, and in 
the north of Syria, as in the kingdom of Bashan. 

The land of Israel is a land of hills, and valleys, and 
plains. Chains of hills and mountains extend from its south- 
ern to its northern extremity, and thus impart a variety of 
richness and a diversity of climate to the separate portions 
of each tribe, as they are destined to extend successively 
from the bounds of the Red Sea to the top of Amana. The 
mountains of Seir, the hill-country of Judea, the hills of 
Ephraim and Samaria, the goodly mountain of Lebanon, and 
the Neyzery hills from thence to the north of the Orontes, 
where they border with Amanus, occupy the whole length 
of the land on the west of the El-Gha and the Orontes, 
while the line of the hills of Moab, of Gilead, and of Bashan 
is continued, valleys intervening throughout, by the higher 
range of Anti-Lebanon, which borders with the land of Ha- 
math. The marvellous manner in which these mountaitis 
were made to contribute in rich abundance to the wants and 
luxury of a dense population, is of itself the strongest of pos- 
itive proofs that no pains were spared in the cultivation of 
the plains, and the remains of numberless aqueducts and cis- 
terns throughout the land show that it once was as a water- 
ed garden. Continuous mountains, interspersed with nu- 
merous valleys, sheltered and watered plains as continuous 
and extensive ; and from end to end of the land, these too 
succeed each other, in a natural richness and fertility so 
great, that an exuberant produce called for little toil, even 
as the prodigality of the ground in producing magnificent 
thistles, and other wild plants and thorns, often exhibits in 
their profusion a fecundity which renders the desolation as- 
tonishing. 

The plains of Philistia, of Sharon, of Acre, and of PhcB- 
nicia, jointly extend along the coast from the south of Pal- 
estine to the base of Mount Casius. The ridge of Carmel 
hij the sea divides the plain of Sharon from that of Acre, and 
from the great plain of Esdraelon ; and where Lebanon 
touches the coast, it divides for a short space the Phoenician 
plains. In the interior of the land, the valleys of the Jor- 
dan, the Kasmich, and the Orontes extend from the Dead 
Sea to Amanus, the rivers of which flow through extensive 
plains ere they reach the Euphrates. 



AND OF TflE NORTH OF SYRIA. 



359 



The natural fertility of these immense plains, which thus 
overspread the land, is such, that one general description of 
a good land might suffice for all. Each, compared with what 
it has been, is as a field that has been reaped ; but a glean- 
ing is left in them all. The harvest is past, but there is the 
promise of a better. Many pastors have destroyed the vine- 
yard of the Lord, and have trodden his pleasant portion un- 
der foot ; but if the hills have profited by the thorns which 
have come upon them, the wild but still more luxuriant 
produce which the plains have yielded has also rendered 
the land more fat than it was ; and it has not been pastured, 
and in a great measure untilled, for ages in vain. The fal- 
low of a single year, or the pasturage of a few, renews the 
strength of cultivated grounds, and fits them for a repetition 
of successive crops. But the land of Israel, while trodden 
down of the Gentiles, has rested for ages, and has refused 
to own any other people as its heirs or rightful possessors, 
while those to whom the Lord gave it for an heritage have 
been scattered abroad. The substance is in it, not less, but 
rather more than ever ; and witnesses remain to show what 
it yet can yield. Age after age has increased its desolation, 
but the wild verdure and the withered grass have fallen year 
by year on its native soil, to enrich it the more : and, as in 
the mountains, continued preparation has been made for the 
final completion of the promises of the Lord to Israel, that 
he will do better unto them than at their beginnings, when 
the sons of the aliens shall not only build their walls, but 
also be their ploughmen and their vinc-dressers. Fur your 
shame ye shall have double, and for confusion they shall re- 
joice in their portion ; therefore in their land they shall pos- 
sess the double, everlasting joy shall be upon them* 

On the southern extremity of the plain of Philistia, the 
soil is seen to the depth of eight or ten feet, or so far as 
the winter torrents have anywhere penetrated through the 
ground and laid it open to view ; yet such is the existing 
desolation, that in so deep a soil and so delicious a climate, 
ten or twelve trees — all that the travellers can count stand- 
ing singly and far apart, in a wide-spread plain — or forty or 
fifty in another part of it, sprinkled somewhat less sparingly 
in an extensive view, like a solitary palm in the plain of 
Jericho, are the last sad mourners over the departed glory 
of Jacob, the fatness of whose flesh has thus been made 

* Isa,, lii., 5, 7. 



360 NATURAL FERTILITY 01^ JUDEA, 



lean. Yet, just because they stand so far between in soli- 
tariness now, the bare remnants of fallen orchards or for- 
ests, they may be the first of those trees which, in the ex- 
pressive language of Scripture, shall clap iheir hands when 
Ihe joy of the land shall return, and when instead of the thoim 
shall come up the fig-tree, and instead of the brier shall come 
up the myrtle-tree; and it shall he to the Lord for a name 
and for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off forever * 
even as they are now the sufficient witnesses that his judg- 
ments were not altogether exterminating, but that a very 
small remnant is left, that the land of Israel should not be 
like unto Sodom and Gomorrah. The last of their race in 
ages past may well be the first of another, which shall never 
thus be reduced again while the ordinances of heaven shall 
stand, and the promises to the patriarchs be confirmed ; for 
while the scriptural figure is ever so true to the past, and 
the gleaning grapes alone are left, it seems as emphatically 
to forbid that these sole and solitary memorials, now scarcely 
spared, should also disappear till the land be visited by its 
own children again, that something in the desolated plain, 
as in the ruined cities, may be left to ihe house of Israel. 

But, however few, there are also some groups and groves 
of figs or olives, and other fruits, which still show that the 
trees of the land did not always stand alone in the plains 
any more than in the hills. 

The days come when every Israelite shall call his neigh- 
bour under the vine and under the fg-tree ;t and, as an em- 
blem of that time, the weary stranger from a far land may 
sometimes bend his way to a cluster of trees (as at Deir- 
Esnaib), and, as the writer may testify, find refreshing 
shelter under the deep shade of the finest fig-trees he ever 
saw ; while hundreds of plums and apricots may be brought 
to him, for which a single piaster {2^d.) is deemed ample 
payment. The close olive grove, extending for miles, near 
Gaza, is full of trees, compared to which the olives of 
Provence are like shrubs. Vines may there be seen en- 
twined around fig-trees ; the luscious pomegranates, in their 
season, may be seen, as at Nablous, covering the ground. 
Lofty hedges of the Indian fig and prickly pear, the com- 
mon and impenetrable fence of the remaining gardens of 
Syria, there line each side of the road, each leaf of which, 
with its thorny points, might well outweigh the flower-pot 

* Isa. Iv., 12, 13. t Zech., iii., 10. 



mm 



AND OF THE NORTH OF SYRIA, 



361 



plants of the same species in the greenhouses of England ; 
and fallen as Syria is, these hedges are covered with fruit. 
The soil of the gardens of Gaza " is exceeding rich and 
productive. The apricots are delicious and abundant. The 
fertile soil produces in abundance grains and fruits of every 
kind, and of the finest quality."* 

Figs, pomegranates, watermelons, renowned for their ex- 
cellence, grow luxuriantly and abundantly in the gardens of 
Jaffa, the ancient Joppa, which opens out into the plain of 
Sfiaron, apparently " extremely fertile, but only partially 
cultivated, and still less inhabited. "f " All this country," 
says Pococke, " is a very rich soil, and throws up a great 
quantity of herbage, very rank thistles, rue, and fennel, and 
a great variety of anemones, and many beautiful tulips. "J 
The plain of Sharon, extending to the hills of Judea on the 
east, and Carmel on the north, has lost all richness and 
beauty but what the earth itself retains, and the vvildness 
of nature supplies. But while the vast herbage enriches 
the soil, the traveller, whose face is not lighted up by the 
hope of better days to come, is " oppressed with a species 
of melancholy which he is at a loss to account for, seeing 
no cause for the existence of such a state of things but the 
curse which has come upon the land." Bashan and Car- 
mel shake off their fruits, and Sharon is like a wilderness.^ 
But, as the same prophet looking to Israel's return, has 
said, The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad 
for them ; the glory of Lebanon shall return unto it ; the ex- 
cellency of Carmel and Sharon, they shall see the glory of 
the Lord, and the excellency of our God.|| Sharon shall 
be a fold for flocks, and the valley of Achor a place for the 
herds to lie down, for the people that have sought me.^ 

The large and fertile _pZam of Acre,a.s seen and described 
by Pococke, was exceedingly rich, and, towards the east, 
well cultivated with cotton and corn. Its soil resembles 
the dark loam of Egypt, and is now chiefly covered with 
large thistles.** " The fine plain of Zabulon, extending to 
the plain of Esdraelon, was, a century ago, a fruitful spot, 
all covered with corn."tt A few years later, Hasselqiiist, 
the pupil of Linn2eus, and to whom his letters were ad- 
dressed, journeying from Acre to Nazareth, first passed 

* Robinson and Smith's Trav., vol. ii., p. 376, 377. 

t Mr. Robinson's Travels, vol. i., p. 25. i Pococke's Travels, p. 5> 

<) Isa , xxxiii., 9. II Ibid., xxxv., 1,2. If Ibid., Ixv., 10. 

** Poewcke, p. 52-61, Buckingham, p. 62. ft Ibid., p. 61. 

H H 



362 



NATURAL FERTILITY OP JUDEA, 



through corn-fields which surrounded the remains of an 
ancient town, and afterward came to a field about three 
miles wide, which bore every year a quantity of good cot- 
ton. From thence he passed through small hills, or rising 
grounds covered with plants, and having fine valleys be- 
tween them, and afterward the country around consisted of 
the finest groves of the eastern oak (Quercus conifera). 
He then entered on the fine plain of Zabulon, covered with 
cotton, at the end of which was a fine grove of oaks, inter- 
spersed with beech. He traversed a land then more beau- 
teous and better cultivated than it is now, and which re- 
tained some evidence, which it has since lost, that it was 
once a land flowing with milk and honey. He saw nu- 
merous beehives at the village of Sephoury, and, ascending 
Tabor, was refreshed by the milk of its fine herds of cattle. 
A fine country, covered with forests, lay between Nazareth 
and Tabor. The extensive plain of Esdraelon, only par- 
tially cultivated, was then an occasional scene of Arab war- 
fare. Treading the vineyard of the Lord under foot, the 
oxen and cows of Galilee constituted " a remarkable part of 
the riches of the country."* It is now almost entirely de- 
serted, except by the wandering Arabs. 

JMount Tabor, rising from the plain of Esdraelon, of Jez- 
reel, or Megidda, is on one side covered with oaks and other 
trees, and bare on the other (see Plate). The view of it 
may convey some idea of the desolation that has overspread 
the land. At its base lies one of the most fertile plains on 
earth, the wild and luxuriant herbage of which has added 
for ages to the fatness of the soil. Studded, as it was in 
ancient times, with cities and large villages, many pastors, 
with their flocks of cattle, camels, sheep, and goats, have 
long trodden it under foot. Not a town or village is visible 
to the naked eye from the top of Tabor, and very few with 
the aid of the glass. The Bedouin tribes are to this day 
seen living there under tents surrounded by their flocks, for 
the sake of the rich pasture it affords. f In many places it 
is closely covered with briers and thorns, in others " beauti- 
fully variegated with immense fields of thistles and wild 
flowers, giving the whole plain the appearance of a carpet- 
ed floor."! is resting for a richer produce than it has 
ever yielded ; but it shall also be the scene of heavier judg- 



* Hasselquist, p. 153, 154 
% Narrative, p. 402. 



t Mr. Roljinson's Trav., vol. i., p. 214, 215. 



AND OF THE NORTH OP SYRIA. 



363 



ments than it has ever witnessed, ere the land be redeemed 
from its curse. In the first ages of Jewish history, as well 
as during the Roman Empire and the Crusades, and even 
in later times, it has been the scene of many a memorable 
contest, and perhaps no soil has ever been so saturated with 
human gore."* But great shall he the day of Jezreelj — 
greater far than it has ever seen. Never yet has any land 
been so saturated with human gore that ihe blood came up 
to the horses^ bridles.'^ 

" The vast plain of Jericho is rich, and susceptible of easy 
tillage, an abundant irrigation, and a climate to produce any- 
thing ; yet it lies almost a desert, and it needs only the hand 
of cultivation to become one of the richest and most beauti- 
ful spots on the face of the earth. The valley of Jordan (of 
which it forms part) is for the most part susceptible of being 
rendered in the highest degree productive, in connexion with 
the abundance of water and heat of the climate. Indeed, ils 
fertility has been celebrated in every age,"§ and, on the op- 
posite extremity of the Lake of Tiberias, the fertile valley 
extends to the sources of the Jordan. " As we descended 
towards Paneas," says Captains Irby and Mangles, " we 
found the country extremely beautiful ; great quantities of 
wild flowers, and a variety of shrubs just budding, together 
with the richness of the verdure of the grass, corn, and beans, 
showed us at once the beauties of spring (Feb. 24), The 
neighbourhood of Paneas is extremely beautiful, richly wood- 
ed, and abounds with game. In ascending from Lake Ho- 
reb (Miram) to Saphed, the plain we had quitted was liter- 
ally covered with wild geese, ducks, widgeon, snipe, and 
water-fowl of every description. "|| A fine plain vt'atered 
with numerous tributary streams, westward of Paneas, and 
many old, ruined mills, testify to the ancient fruitfulness and 
comparative desolation of a region where Crusaders carried 
off a spoil unheard of in European territories. The greater 
part of the plain is uncultivated, but luxuriant wild oats cov- 
er many fields, which men have ceased to cultivate. 

Beyond the ancient frontier of Israel, the land yet to be 
possessed is not less fertile, whether in the plains or mount- 
ains, than that which the Israelites occupied of old. 

The space between Sidon and the mountains of Lebanon, 



* Mr. Robinson's Trav., vol. i., p. 214. , f Hosea, i., 11. 

t Rev., xiv., 20. t) Robinson and Smitb, vol. ii., p. 279-286, 289. 

II Irby aud Mangles, p. 286-291. 



364 



NATUHAL FERTILITY OF JUDEA, 



as described by Pococke, was wnolly laid out in gardens or 
orchards, which appeared very beautiful at a distance. "I 
was one day," he says, " entertained by the French mer- 
chants with a collation in a garden under the shade of apri- 
cot-trees ; and the fruit of them was shaken on us, as an in- 
stance of their great plenty and abundance. Richly-culti- 
vated gardens, with tall, verdant trees, still cover the plain."* 

The great plain of Phoenicia, between both the Lebanon 
and Anzeyry Mountains and the sea, is naturally very fer- 
tile, and " no place could be better watered than it is by the 
numerous streams or rivers which traverse it; but it is now 
nearly deserted, and only partially cultivated, the cultivators 
being chiefly the Anzeyrys who inhabit the mountains."! 

On the opposite side of the mountains, the valleys of Be- 
kaa and the Orontes present throughout a vast expanse of 
successive plains, extending for more than tvi'o hundred 
miles, scarcely less desolate, or less tempting to the culti- 
vator, than the plains of the Belkah or the Haouran. 

" The plain betvi^een Deir-el-Ahmer and Baalbec is fer- 
tile to a degree, but apparently uncultivated. There are no 
villages within sight of the road."t Not a sixth part of the 
fhiin of Bekaa is cultivated between Zahl and Baalbec. § 
The district, like that of Bekaa, is fertile, but uncultivated; 
The vast plain of Hams (Emesa) is beautiful, and of almost 
unequalled fertility. The plain of Hamah exceeds even 
that of Horns in the fertility of its soil, but is still less culti- 
vated than that of the Bekaa. "The lower tract, called 
EI-Huleh, is not less remarkable for its fertility. But these 
pin ins, though so fertile by nature, are, like most of the plains 
of Syria, less cultivated than the mountains. The district 
of Selomya, lying east of the Asy (Orontes), was described 
as exceeding even the neighbourhood of Horns and Hamah 
in the fertility of its soil. It was (in 1834) entirely desert- 
ed. || These plains retain all their natural fertility, as when 
Seleucus Nicator and his successors maintained, in the vi- 
cinity of Apamea, live thousand elephants, three thousand 
breeding mares, and a great part of his army.^ The 'plain 
of A/aks, supposed to be that in which Aurelian conquered 
Z«nobia, and in which the traveller now counts many sites 
of ruins, consists of a fine loamy soil, now left desolate and 

* Pococke, p 86. Narrative, p. 349. 

t Van Egmont and Ileymnn, p. 307, 308. Mr. Robinson, p. G7, 71. Irby and Man- 
gles, &c. t Mr. Robinson, vol. ii., p. 92. 6 Burckhardt, p. 8. 
I! Robinson and Smith, vol. iii., App., p. 174, 176, 178, f Strabo, p 1068. 



AND OF THE NORTH OF SYPJA. 



365 



uninhabited.* The plains of Kiftein, southwest of Aleppo, 
are of vast compass, extending to the southward beyond the 
reach of the eye, and are in most places very fruitful. Near 
Kiftein are more dovecots than houses. f The great plain 
of XJruk contains the Lake of Antioch in its centre. The 
plain of Dasna, which is very level, is badly supplied with 
water; but it once has been, and still is, remarkable for its 
fertility. It extends to the foot of Mount St. Simon on the 
one side, and on the south beyond the visible horizon. | The 
gardens of Aleppo have lost for a time their high renown, 
but the slopes of the hills which border both sides of the 
river are laid out into vineyards, olive plantations, and fig- 
gardens.^ There, as throughout most places in Syria, the 
abundance of game is astonishing. Every day, say Irby 
and Mangles, we had either woodcocks or partridges, wild 
geese or ducks, teal, the bustard, or wild turkey, || &c. 

These extracts, brief and incomplete as they are, may, 
from the ample evidence which they impart, leave some im- 
pression on the reader's mind of the vast extent, reaching 
from end to end, of the land, and of the astonishing fertility, 
and no less astonishing desolation of the plains which per- 
tain to the covenanted inheritance of Israel. 

Colonel Chesney's work on the Euphrates Expedition, 
now in the press, with many of the proof-sheets of which he 
kindly furnished the writer of these pages, will throw a new 
light on these regions, long mostly unknown to the world, 
of which they held as long the chief dominion. As the first 
spot on which the Euphrates Expedition landed has been 
thereby exalted into an illustration of the facility with which 
a once noble city of Syria could be restored, so also the spot 
at which they rested may illustrate how the promised land, 
embracing all the regions to the west of the Euphrates, has 
still a sign to show in its utmost bounds, on the south as 
well as on the north, what it yet shall be, when desolated 
wastes shall become like watered gardens. 

" The country (on the Lower Euphrates) produces great 
quantities of barley and wheat, in their wild as well as cul- 
tivated state. Onions, spinach, and beans are the usual 
vegetables, and these are largely cultivated along the sides 
of the rivers, .where, just after the water recedes, the prog- 
ress of vegetation is surprising. Some idea may be form- 

* Irby and Mangles, p. 331. t Maundrell, p. 8. 

i Ainsworth's Assyria, p. 96, 98. ^ Mr. Robinson, vol. ii., p, 264- 

II Irby and Mangles, p. §33. 

H H 2 



366 



NATURAL FERTILITY OF JUDEA, ETC» 



ed of the productive qualities of the soil, from the fact of 
eight crops of clover having been cut in the neighbourhood 
of Basrah during the year."* 

The desolation and depopulation of the land, given up, a^ 
in a great measure it is, to the beasts of the field and to the- 
fowls of the air, may have multiplied game, while the fish of 
the rivers, however abundant, suffer little diminution from 
the hand of man. " Hares, black and stone-coloured par- 
tridges, francolins, bramin, and common wild geese, ducks, 
teal, pelicans, cranes, &c., are abundant. The rivers are 
full of fish, chiefly barbed, and carp, which latter grows to 
an enormous size in the Euphrates."! Upper Mesopotamia, 
like the district south of the Khabur, abounds with the ordi- 
nary kinds of grain, and the fruits of a warmer temperature, 
such as oranges, grapes, and pomegranates (which are par- 
ticularly fine) ; walnuts, pistachios, and other products of a 
colder region, are equally good. Of game, the country about 
Port William (Ulan Beer) has at one season the aigrette, the: 
parrot, stork, flamingo, bustard, and the Tardus Seleucus-j, 
which are succeeded by wild geese, ducks, teal, swans,, 
snipes, iern,"J &c. The Euphrates turtle (Trionyx Euphra- 
tica), as Mr. Ainsworth states, abounds in large muddy pools. 
The dates of the Lower Euphrates excel those of Tafitah, 
and are decidedly finer than any produced along the Nile. 
This region is well adapted for the growth of cotton, sugar, 
indigo, and many of the fruits of a warm climate. About the 
Khabur the date-tree (palm) almost ceases to bear ; but or- 
anges, grapes, pears, apples, and other fruits and grain, ar- 
rive at perfection. § 

" The soil of Mesopotamia (on the eastern side of the Eu- 
phrates) is generally a sandy clay, the surface of which, in 
the absence of water, is a positive desert ; but wherever it is 
watered by the numerous inlets and irrigating canals branch. 
\ng from the different rivers, it is rich and productive in the 
extreme." The renewal of irrigation would revive anew 
both sides of the same river, as it flows through a plain. 
But though first Israel, and then Judah, were carried captive 
beyond the river, Mesopotamia itself, extending upward of 
seven hundred miles in length, and one hundred and seventy 
miles at its greatest breadth, is but a part of Assyria, a\\ of 
which must filially own the sovereignty of Israel. 

* Chap, vi., p. 108, t Ibid. t Ibid. () Ibid., p. 106. 



CONCLUSION. 



367 



CONCLUSION. 

From the previous details, a few concluding words may 
suffice for a succinct delineation of Syria, or the promised 
land of Israel, which may but be given in the words of Yol- 
ney. " It was reserved for him," says Malte Brun, one of 
the first authorities in geography, " to present the world with 
a complete picture of Syria." So complete was that picture 
— inferior, in the variety of its discriminating features, to 
none but that which was drawn by the prophets of old — 
that, as we have elsewhere shown, he has supplied many 
most precise and literal illustrations of the prophecies which 
have gone forth against it. But in his day the land had not 
fully reached its last prophetic degree of desolation and depop- 
ulation. The population, rated by Volney at two millions and 
a half, is now estimated at half that amount. 

The soil in the plain of Syria " is rich and loamy, and in- 
dicates the greatest fecundity. In the territory of Aleppo it 
resembles very fine brick-dust. Almost everywhere else the 
earth is brown, and as fine as garden mould."* 

The difference of latitude between the different extremi- 
ties of Syria — equal to that from Cornwall to Caithness — 
gives rise of itself to variety of temperature ; but other nat- 
ural causes far more powerfully tend, even in continuous lo- 
calities, to diversify the climate in a very remarkable, if not 
unparalleled degree. The palms in the deep valley of the 
Jordan flourished in the greatest luxuriance in a tropical cli- 
mate, while the magnificent cedars of Lebanon show how 
goodly is the produce of the land in its highest elevations, 
and in the vicinity of eternal snow. 

Along the coast of Syria, and at Tripoli in particular, ac- 
cording to Volney, " the lowest to which the thermometer 
falls in winter is eight or nine degrees above the freezing 
point (40^ or 41° of Fahrenheit). In winter, therefore, all 
the chain of mountains is covered with snow, while the low- 
er country is always freed from it, or, at least, it lies a very 
short time. " In the lower plains, the winter is so mild along 
the seacoast that the orange, palm, banana, and other deli» 

* Volney 's Travels, chap, pci,, ^ 6. 



368 



CONCLUSION, 



cate trees flourish in the open air. In Syria difl^erent cli- 
mates are thus united under the same sky ; arid in a narrow 
compass, pleasures and productions, which Nature has else- 
where dispersed at great distances, are collected. With us, 
for instance, seasons are divided by months, there by hours. 
If in Saide or Tripoli we feel the heat of summer trouble- 
some, in six hours we are in the neighbouring mountains, in 
the temperature of March (in France) ; or, again, if chilled 
in the frosts of December at Beshirri, a day's journey brings 
us to the coast, amid the flowers of May. The Arabian po- 
ets have therefore said that the Sannim (Lebanon) bears 
winter on his head, spring upon his shoulders, and autumn 
in his bosom, while summer lies sleeping at his feet. " I 
have myself," says Volney, " experienced this figurative ob- 
servation during the eight months I resided at the monastery 
of Marhanna, seven leagues from Beyrout. At the end of 
February, at Tripoli, a variety of vegetables were in perfec- 
tion, and many flowers in full bloom. The early figs were 
past at Beyrout when they were first gathered with us." 

To this advantage, which perpetuates enjoyments by their 
succession, Syria adds a second, that of multiplying them 
by the variety of its productions. Were nature aided by art, 
those of the most distant countries might be produced with- 
in twenty leagues. At present, notwithstanding the barba- 
rism of a government which is inimical to all industry and 
improvement, we are astonished at the variety. Besides 
wheat, barley, rye, beans, and the cotton plant, which is 
(was) everywhere cultivated, we find many useful and agree- 
able productions, appropriated to different situations. In 
Palestine sesamum abounds, from which they procure oil, 
and dourra (a kind of pulse) as good as that of Egypt. 
Maize thrives in the light soil of Baalbec ; and even rice is 
cultivated with success on the borders of the marshy coun- 
tries of Havula. They have lately begun to cultivate sugar- 
canes in the gardens of Saide and of Beyrout, equal to those 
of the Delta. Indigo grows without cultivation on the banks 
of the Jordan, in the country of Bisan, and needs but care 
to improve the quality. Tobacco is now cultivated through- 
out ail the mountains. As for trees, the olive of Provence 
grows at Antioch, and at Ramlah to the height of the beech. 
In the white mulberry-tree consists the wealth of the whole 
country of the Druses, by the beautiful silk which it produ- 
ces ; while the vine, supported by poles, or winding about 



CONCLUSION, 



369 



the oaks, supplies grapes, which afford red and white wines 
equal to those of Bourdeaux. The watermelons of Jaffa 
are preferred before the very fine watermelons of Broulas. 
Gaza produces dates like Mecca, and pomegranates like 
Algiers. Tripoli affords oranges like Malta. Beyrout, figs 
like Marseilles, and bananas like St. Domingo. Aleppo 
has the (not) exclusive advantage of producing pistachios ; 
and Damascus justly boasts of possessing all the fruits known 
in the provinces : its stony soil suits equally the apples of 
Normandy, the plums of Touraine, and the peaches of Paris. 
Twenty sorts of apricots are enumerated there, the stone of 
one of which contains a kernel highly valued throughout 
Turkey. The cochineal plant, which grows on all that 
coast, contains, perhaps, that precious insect in as high per- 
fection as it is found in Mexico and St. Domingo ; and if 
we consider that the mountains of Yemen, which produce 
such excellent coffee, are only a continuation of those of 
Syria, and that their soil and climate are almost the same, 
we shall be induced to believe that in Judea particularly 
might be easily cultivated this valuable production of Arabia. 

" With these advantages of climate and soil, it is not sur- 
prising that Syria should always have been reckoned a most 
delicious country, and that the Greeks and Romans esteem- 
ed it among the most beautiful of their provinces, and equal 
even to Egypt."* 

Such is the description of the climate and soil of Syria by 
the man who sought to adduce a conclusive proof against 
revelation from the desolation of the land and the ruins of 
its cities which prophets had foretold ; and such, as an eye- 
witness, is the refutation which he gives to the blasphemies 
against the land of Israel, uttered by those who in other 
things were his fellow-scoffers. Elsewhere he writes as 
if in purpose to prove the inspiration which he denied ; 
and infidel as he was, he here refutes the calumnies of oth- 
ers, as if his design had been to bear testimony to the scrip- 
tural record descriptive of the fertility and excellence of the 
land, were nature again seconded by art, as it was in an- 
cient times. Where is there another country in which such 
varied excellences are naturally combined, or of which such 
a description would be a picture, especially even in a land 
so desolate as Syria was when seen by Volney ? And how 
appositely does his delineation of its capabilities combine 

* Volney's Trav., vol, i., p. 316-321, English translation. 



370 



CONCLUSION. 



with the scriptural narrative of what the promised heritage 
was wlien first peopled by those to whom the Lord gave it, 
and as it shall become when given to them again, not in tem- 
porary, but everlasting possession : a good land, a land of 
brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of val- 
leys and hills ; a land of wheat and harley, and vines and 
fig-trees, and pomegranates and olives ; a land wherein they 
would eat bread without scarceness, and lack not anything in 
it ; a land of bread and vineyards ; a land of olive-oil and of 
honey ; a land which the Lord espied for them, flowing with 
milk and honey, lohich is the glory of all lands* Yet the 
past is but an earnest of the future. Behold, the days come 
that the ploughman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader 
of grapes him that soweth seed ; and the mountains shall drop 
sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt. And I will bring 
again the captivity of my 'people of Israel., and they shall build 
the waste cities, and inhabit them ; and they shall plant vine- 
yards, and drink the wine thereof ; they shall also make gar- 
dens, and eat the fruit thereof. And I will plant them upon 
their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of the land 
which I have given them, saiih the Lord. God.'f And it shall 
come to pass in that day, that the mountains shall drop down 
new wine, the little hills shall flow with ?nilk, and all the riv- 
ers of Judah shall flow with waters. And Judah shall 
dwell forever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation. 
For I will cleanse their blood that I have not cleansed ; for 
the Lord dwelleth in Zion.% The Lord shall comfort Zion : 
He will comfort all her waste places, and he will make her 
wilderness as Eden, and her desert like the garden of the 
Lord; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiv- 
ing, and the voice of melody. § Ye shall go forth with joy, 
and be led forth with peace ; the mountains and the hills 
shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of 
the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall 
come up the fir-tree, and instead of the brier shall come up 
the myrtle-tree ; and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for 
an everlasting sign that shall not be cut q^.|| The desolate 
land shall be tilled, whereas it lay desolate in the .<!ight of all 
that passed by. And they shall say, this land which was des- 
olate is become like the garden of Eden ; and the waste, and 
desolate, and ruined cities are become fenced and are inhab- 

* Deut., viii., 7-9; xi., 11, 12. Ezek., xx., 6. t Apios, ix., 13-15. 

t Joel, iii., 18, 20, 21. () Isa., ii., 3. - |1 Ibid., Iv,, 12, 13. 



CONCLUSION. 



371 



ited. Then the heathen that are round about you shall 
know that I the Lord build the ruined places, and plant that 
that was desolate, ^c* And it shall come to pass in that 
day, I will hear, saith the Lord, I will hear the heavens, and 
they shall hear the earth ; and the earth shall hear the corn, 
and the wine, and, the oil ; and they shall hear Jezreel.\ And 
when the great day of Jezreel shall be past, They shall sit, 
every one under his vine and under his Jig-tree, and none shall 
make them afraid; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken 

The abortive attempt to rebuild Askelon was akin to the 
attempt to restore or extend the cultivation of that land. In 
the report of the commercial statistics of Syria by Dr. Bow- 
ring, it is stated, that in the preceding year, 1837, " Ibrahim 
Pasha forced an increased cultivation throughout Syria, and 
the inhabitants of the different towns were oblis^ed to take 
upon themselves the agricultural charge of every spot of land 
susceptible of improvement. He himself set the example, 
and embarked a large sum in such enterprises. The officers 
of the army, down to the majors, were forced also to adven- 
ture in similar undertakings. The result was, however, ex- 
tremely unfortunate, from the want of the usual periodical 
rains, which caused the failing of the crops generally in 
Syria, and in most cases a total loss of capital ensued. Mr. 
Wherry says, a considerable extension of the plantation of 
the mulberry, and olive-tree, and vines took place at Tripoli, 
Latakia, and to the south, "i^ &c. 

As long as the Hebrews are in the land of their enemies, 
so long the land lieth desolate. I will make your heaven as 
iron and your earth as brass, and your sireiigth shall be spent 
in vain, and your land shall not yield her increase, <^c. They 
have sown wheat, but shall reap thorns : they have put them- 
selves to pain, but shall not profit ; and they shall be ashamed 
of your revenues because of the fierce anger of the Lord.\ 

" The agricultural produce of Syria," as the same report 
bears, " is far less than might be expected from the exten- 
sive tracts of fertile lands, and the favourable character of 
the climate. In the districts where hands are found to cul- 
tivate the fields, production is large, and the return for cap- 
ital is considerable ; but the want of population for the pur- 
poses of cultivation is most deplorable. Regions of the high- 



* Ezek., xxx^n., 34. 

t) Report on Syria, p. 9, 10. 



t Hosea, xi., 21, 22. t Micah, iv., 4. 

II Lev., xxvi., 19, 20. Jer., xii., 13. 



CONCLUSION. 



est fertility remain fallow, and the traveller passes over con- 
timious leagues of the richest soil which is wholly unproduc- 
tive to man. Nay, towns surrounded by lands capable of the 
most successful cultivation are often compelled to import 
corn for the daily consumption, as is the case at Antioch, in 
whose immediate neighbourhood the fine lands on the bor- 
ders of the Orontes might furnish food for hundreds of thou- 
sands of inhabitants."* I will bring your land into desola- 
tion ; and your enemies which dwell therein shall 'be astonish- 
ed at it. Then shall the land enjoy her sabhoths, as long as 
it lieth desolate^ and ye be in your enemies'' land ; even then 
shall the land rest and enjoy her sabbaths. As long as it li- 
eth desolate it shall rest ; because it did not rest in your sab- 
baths while ye dwelt upon it. The land shall be left of them, 
aiid shall enjoy her sabbaths while she lieth desolate without 
them.j 

The astonishinent is, not that a land now desolate should 
once have teemed with population and produce, but that, rich 
as it is, and able as ever to sustain many myriads through- 
out all its borders, regions of the highest fertility should re- 
main fallow ; that continuous leagues of the richest soil 
should be wholly unproductive to man ; that corn should be 
imported for thefeiv men that are left, while surrounded by 
the richest land capable of furnishing food for hundreds of 
thousands of inhabitants. Well may a stranger from a far 
land, and the enemies that dwell within it, be astonished at 
it ; even at the desolation of so fertile a country in so fine a 
clime. But in vain do they try to redeem it from the curse, 
or to rebuild the desolate cities, or to renew the face of the 
land, till the time come when it shall smile again on the re- 
turn of its children. 

For this, the briers, and thorns, and thistles, from which 
nothing could be carried away, and which, even when burn- 
ed, yield ashes to fertilize the soil, have come upon the land ; 
for this, the terraces have sustained the soil, and the rains 
that have fallen from year to year, and that made the thorny 
plants or wild herbage to shoot forth anew, instead of wash- 
ing the soil away, were filtered as they passed down the 
sides of the terraced hills, and every particle of soil retain- 
ed, that the mountains of Israel might finally shoot forth 
their branches, and rejoice on every side. For this end the 
land has enjoyed its sabbaths ; not tilled by aliens, as it was 

* Report on Syria, p. 9. t Lev., xxvi., 32, 34, 35, 43. 



CONCLUSION. 



373 



by Israelites of old, but resting still, as if awaiting their re- 
turn : and though they suffered not the land to keep its sab- 
baths, nor themselves kept the Sabbath of the Lorii, yet has 
the land enjoyed her sabbaths, or " remains fallow" after many 
generations, that when God shall make fut the bones of Ja- 
cob, the glory of whose flesh he has made lean, and the land 
be like a watered garden, the promise shall be fulfilled to 
a covenant-keeping people, whom the Lord will guide con- 
tinually : If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from 
doing thy pleasure on my holy day , and call the Snbbath a 
delight, the Holy of the Lord honourable ; and shalt honour 
him, not doing thine own ways, nor hnding thine own pleas- 
ure, nor speaking thine own words, then shall thou delight 
thyself in the Lord, and I will cause thee to ride upon the 
high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of 
Israd thy father ; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.* 
For the restoration of Israel other means may be prepa- 
ring. All eyes of late years have been turned to Syria, and 
commercial statistics are not unassociated with political 
speculations. " Since the twenty-five years' war between 
Britain and France, commerce to these countries has not 
only assumed a new phase, but has acquired fresh vigour, 
and the political and commercial relations of these countries 
seem equally alienated from the sultan's power, government, 
and authority. New channels, furnishing immense supplies 
of merchandise, have been opened : Trehizond and Erzerouin 
supply the southern Persian provinces, and, in part, north- 
ern Mesopotamia ; the Persian Gulf supplies the southern 
Persian provinces, and, in part. Babylonia ; while Syria, by 
way of Damascus, supplies Babylonia for the same object, 
and Aleppo northern Mesopotamia and Babylonia, thereby 
completing the two former lines. Such are the channels 
through whicli British capital flows, diffusing commerce and 
affluence by the introduction of our manufactures and the ex- 
tension of trade generally, and for whose promotion, in which 
the great political magnitude of our East India colonies 
form so important a connecting link, the sway of great Brit- 
ain seems called on to maintain the chief direction of the 
destinies of Eastern politics, to form, it may be hoped, a 
counterpoise to the gigantic schemes of Russia ; but for the 
furtherance of such great national objects, Syria, both polit- 
ically and geographically considered, should be made the 

* Isaiah, Iviii., 11-14. 
1 I 



574 CONCLUSION- 

foint d^appui ; its geograf)hical position at this end of the 
Mediterranean, of such easy access from Great Britain, 
would seem to demand the chief attention of the British cab- 
inet, to blend with its advantageous position every internal 
facility and communication by which the commerce of Syria 
can be made to increase, and poUtically to place it under a 
wood and permanent government."* 

Such is the close of a communication imbodyingthe opin- 
ions of " a gentleman long resident in Syria, and intimately 
acquainted with Oriental politics," which, Dr. Bowring states, 
are undoubtedly entitled to greater weight than any obser- 
vations of his ovi^n, and he has therefore given them a prom- 
inent place in his report. 

In it he states that, " notwithstanding all impediments and 
difficulties, wherever repose and peace have allowed the ca- 
pabilities of Syria to develop themselves, production and 
commerce have taken rapid strides. Both for agriculture 
and manufactures Syria has great capabilities. Were fiscal 
exactions checked and regulated ; could labour pursue its 
peaceful vocations ; were the aptitudes which the country 
and its inhabitants present for the development of industry 
called into play, the whole face of the land would soon be 
changed. The presence and influence of European, and es- 
pecially of British merchants, cannot but produce habits of 
greater punctuality and probity. They will also call forth 
the undeveloped and productive energies of the country, 
■whenever peace and security shall succeed to frequent wars 
and long-during armed truces, which have brought with 
them perpetual disquiet and uncertainty, the frequent inter- 
ruptions of trade and communication, of manufacturing and 
agricultural industry, the consequence of the constant drain- 
ings of the people, and the exhaustion of the wealth of the 
land. The conquests of Ibrahim promised tranquillity and 
improvement, but the insurrections and disturbances of the 
last two years have again checked the progress of prosperity." 

Since that time Syria has again changed its master. But 
a few years ago Ibrahim was looked on as a deliverer : but 
he ruled Syria with an iron rod, and carried on an exter- 
minating war in the Haouran. Revolt followed on revolt, 
till the oppressed and miserable inhabitants were disarmed : 
when, by European interference, they were armed anew, 
and from the banks of the Euphrates to the borders of 

* Report on Syria, p. 49. 



CONCLUSION. 



375 



Egypt the Egyptian army was removed far away, Syria 
was delivered over to the Turks, who were before unable 
to retain it, anarchy worse than despotism ensued, and not 
less, but rather more than ever, a land which has found no 
rest for ages, cries out, in all but utter hopelessness at last, 
for a good and permanent government, under which, on po- 
litical and commercial views, and in the progress of events, 
now of an unprecedented nature, it is said to be the duty 
and the wisdom of the British cabinet to place it. 

Worldly politicians feel the necessity of an altered course 
of things in Syria ; and four great yowers of Europe, after 
France had broken off from the alliance, took in hand the 
settlement of its affairs, and transferred it from the firm 
hands of the Pasha of Egypt to the feeble hands of the sul- 
tan. Other powers than Britain are now concerned in the 
settlement of Syria, indispensable, as it now seems, to the 
peace of the world. A country which for previous centu- 
ries no man inquired after, excites anew the liveliest inter- 
est among the greatest of earthly potentates. After a 
twenty-five years' war between England and France, the 
sovereiorns of both these kingdoms, when sixteen more had 
elapsed, simultaneously congratulated the Parliament of the 
one and the Chambers of the other, in similar terms, on the 
prospect of continued peace, because, as they imagined, the 
Eastern question had been settled. On the 27th December, 
1841, the speech of the King of France thus began : " Since 
the close of your last session, the questions which excited 
in the East our just solicitude, have reached their term. I 
have concluded with the Emperor of Austria, the Queen of 
Great Britain, the King of Prussia, and the sultan, a con- 
nexion which consecrates the common intention of the pow- 
ers to maintain the peace of Europe, and consolidate the 
repose of the Ottoman Empire." 

But the question of the settlement, or appropriation of 
Syria, has not reached its term, and the repose of the Otto- 
man Empire, then essentially associated with the peace of 
Europe, is not yet consolidated. The breaking up of that 
empire is the scriptural prognostic of another confederacy 
and of a universal war, and hence the peace of Europe or 
of the world seems dependant on its repose. Its fall — or 
the drying up of the Euphrates, not unequivocally illustrated 
by " the constant drainings of the people" — prepares the 
way of the kings of the East. The great powers, ruled and 



376 



CONCLUSION. 



controlled by a power greater than they, and higher than 
the highest, may, when the counsels of the Eternal shall be 
evolved by their acts, in accordance with his Word, have 
another work to do than that of either keeping Mohammed 
Ali in his place, or the snltan on his throne. And as other 
things seem ready for the national restoration of the Jews, 
who can say that history may not in a little time, in the 
discharge of the task assigned it, supply an illustration of 
the Word of the Lord, and show how a nation, when brought 
to the birth, may he horn in a day. Greece vi'as given to 
the Greeks ; and in seeking any government for Syria, may 
not a confederacy of kings, for the sake of the peace of the 
world, be shut up to the course of giving — if they think it 
theirs to give — Judea to the Jews ? Connexions may be 
concluded between earthly sovereigns, and the end may be, 
as it has often been, to show that they are but of little 
worth. And resolve the question as for the time they may, 
yet, so soon as the Ruler of the nations suffers or sets them 
to intermeddle with the Syrian question, that shall not reach 
its term, or the issue assigned it from the beginning by the 
Lord, till a covenant different from all earthly connexions, 
even that which the Lord made vvith Abraham, and Isaac, 
and Jacob, to give that land to their seed for an everlasting 
possession, shall be realized. After the desolating qui- 
escence of ages, revolution has succeeded to revolution in 
the land, still ripening for more, as if its present history 
were read in the words of the prophet, applicable to the 
last days of its trouble, before the time of its peace, Over- 
turn, overturn, overturn, till He come whose it is, and I will 
give it him. While the sovereigns of this world speak of 
connexions concluded and peace consolidated, the councils 
of the Eternal interpose, and the King of Kings says. Over- 
turn, overturn. When the question shall reach its final term, 
whenever that shall be, the land, in blessedness and peace, 
shall be the people's to whom the Lord hath given it; and 
all kings on earth shall see the glory of the J^ord. 

The result of the designs and doings of earthly govern- 
ments is not unfrequently the reverse of what they devise. 
The Lord, to whom power belongs, and with whom wisdom 
dwells, turns wise men hackward. Shortsighted is the wis- 
doin that knows not what a day may bring forth, and weak 
the power that cannot prepare for it. Kings, in oiher mat-^ 
ters, are accomplishing now what the. Lord may use as 



CONCLUSION. 



877 



means for the subversion of their kingdoms, as of this world 
they yet are, and turn into instruments for the completion of 
his promises to Israel, and for the better government of all 
the nations of the earth, when the law shall go forth to them 
all out of Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusakm."^ 
Great kings of old were hewers of stone for cities of Israel 
yet to be rebuilt. And at last the highways have to be cast 
up, that the way of the Lord's people may be prepared. Af- 
ter the kingdoms that were to arise on the earth had been 
symbolized, in other visions, before the eyes of Daniel, even 
as they have actually passed in history before our own, the 
things noted in the Scripture of Truth were finally revealed, 
as rendered in the prophecy which concludes his book ; 
and on declaring them, the angel said, I am come to make 
thee understand what shall befall thy 'people in the latter 
days; for yet the vision is for many days.] And after the 
things were written, Daniel was commanded to '"''shut up 
and seal the book, even to the time of the end. And the sign 
of that time was given, 7nany shall run to and fro, and knowl- 
edge shall be increased.''^ In all past ages, men would have 
looked in vain for any such sign of the time of the end\ as that 
which now, vividly, day by day, brightens more and more 
in the sight of the existing generation. And the time, if 
not come, may, as thus assigned, be at hand, in which the 
Scripture of Truth, revealing the things that should befall the 
Jews in the latter days, may at last be an open book, when 
there is this warrant from the Lord for breaking the seal. 

But if such a time be come, the kinors or governments of 
the earth, while entering into conventions for maintaining 
the integrity of the Ottoman Empire — against which ihe 
word of the Lord has gone forth, and on which that word 
must fall whenever his work with it is done — may not be 
idle in casting up the highway, and preparing the way for the 
return of the Jews§ in the predicted manner : they shall 
come with speed swiftly, and fly as a cloud, and as the doves 
to their windows ;\\ and also for the better things that shall 
follow, when that empire shall be overthrown, and the last 
of battles shall have been fought, and men shall go up from 
year to year out of all the nations of the earth to Jerusalem 
to ivorship before the Lord, the Lord of Hosts,^ and war shall 
cease forever throughout all the ends of the earth. Much, 

* Isaiah, xi., 3. t Dan., i., 14. t Ibid., xii., 4. 

^ Isa., xii., 10. H Ibid., li., 8. ^ Zech., xiv., 16, 17. 

I I 2 



378 



CONCLUSION. 



far more than ever, as men already run to and fro, yet new 
facilities are opening np, so that in the course of a very few 
years Europe n:iay be passed through, from Hamburgh to 
Trieste, in two days, or the North Sea be linked by a rail- 
way t'> the Adriatic, and France may be traversed in a day 
from the British Channel to the Mediterranean. 

A sudden change of the atmosphere causes the doves, 
spread far and wide all around, prompted by instinct, to fly 
to their windows. With equal ease, and even so by a 
change in the spirit of the times, can the Lord Almighty, 
who has given that instinct to these, bring back the children 
of Israel — the tribe of Judah first — from every country under 
heaven, and cause them to come with speed swiftly (or very 
swiftly), in a manner they never could have done till now, 
to the land which He promised to their father, and to their 
seed forever. 

But around the land itself, as within its borders, there are 
other indications that the time draweth nigh, of a different 
character, though not less defined. 

The land is in a great measure naked of inhabitants, and 
there are few men left, and those few have but a slight hold 
on the land that is not theirs. The inhabitants, instead of 
being, like the peasants anciently in many, and still in some, 
countries of Europe, adstricti glehce,oi bound to the soil, are 
wanderers without settled habitation ; and instead of abidingf 
in houses, as is general throughout ail cultivable regions of 
the world, with comparatively few exceptions, they dwell in 
tents, which are removed from place to place, as their des- 
tined work of treading down the land, and fertilizing the soil 
by pasturing it, is fulfilled. Their tents are struck whenever 
the green pasture is eaten up by their flocks, and are only 
temporarily set up again, to be removed anew in their cease- 
less wanderings. Few of the Bedouin or wandering Arabs, 
as Burckhardt has remarked, die in the place in which they 
were born. They stilfwander in the wilderness, till the pe- 
riod arrive when they shall "dwell in the presence of their 
brethren." The traveller occasionally witnesses the break- 
ing up of an Arab camp, when hundreds, and sometimes 
thousands, remove from one locality to another, with all their 
flocks, in order to consume successively the herbage in the 
place where it grows, like flocks of sheep penned succes- 
sively, for enriching the soil, in all the different portions of 
a field. But as the rams of Nebaioth and the flocks of Kedar 



CONCLUSION, 



379 



shall yet minister io Israel^ so the multitude of camels shall 
cover the land, the dromedaries of Midian and Ephah* when 
the people shall flow together, and fly as a cloud, and as the 
doves to their windows. 

The chief beasts of burden throughout the land are camels 
or dromedaries, which, in many places, from one extremity 
of it to the other, are very numerous. So soon as Pales- 
tine is entered on the south, they are sometimes seen in 
large numbers, spread over the plains ; and as the sun de- 
clines, they are gathered, together with the cattle, around 
the tents of the Arabs, or the cottages for shepherds in the 
land of Philistia,t so that in a wide-extended view, the face 
of the country is simultaneously lighted up with fires on ev- 
ery side, to protect them from the wild beasts, to which, 
rather than unto men, the land is now given. On the north 
of Syria Arabs now wander with their camels and flocks, 
where a successor of Alexander the Great fed, in a single 
narrow region, thousands of elephants. Of such facts the 
writer had noted several illustrations ; but the most recent 
is the most striking, communicated to him in a letter from 
his esteemed friend. Dr. Wilson, of Bombay. " On ap- 
proaching Damascus from the Jizr Banat Jacub (Jacob's 
Bridge), we passed uninjured, though not without some ap- 
prehension, through the camp of the Anazi of the great Ba- 
riah, extending for twenty miles, and containing, according 
to the smallest computation, no fewer than 35,000 camels. 
At Damascus we witnessed the arrival of the Bagdad cara- 
van of 4000 camels, loaded with spices and precious wares. 
Both circumstances brought vividly to our remembrance the 
promise : ' The multitude of camels shall cover thee ; the 
dromedaries of Midian and Ephah : all they from Shebah 
shall come ; they shall bring gold and incense ; and they 

* A singular fact in natural history, not unconnected with the fertility of the land, 
is worthy of notice. In passing through the desert from Eyypt, the author was sur- 
prised to see the green verdure, in many instances, of tall grassy bushes, t.o which 
the bending of the camel's head not unfrequently directed his attention ; and where 
no water is near, he for some time tried in vain to satisfy himself as to the cause of 
the verdure Little holes were seen around the bushes, but their cause or purpose 
was alike unknown. At Kan Younes the seeming mysteiy was solved. Multitudes 
of beetles (the scarabeus of the Egj^ptians) were seen rolling the round pieces of cam- 
el's dung, and other deposites, speedily formed by them into a similar shape and size, 
to suitable spots where the soil was bare, or around the roots of bushes ; there they 
firmed their holes, with the mathematical accuracy of instinct, into which the halls, 
by a slight motion, were rolled down— these forming beds of incubation for the " sharn- 
bred beetle." These little animals, which abound in myriads, at once preserve the 
pureness of the air, ajid, increasing the fertility of the soil, are often the only, hut 
busy, cultivators where man is idle : and the wonder is diminished that the scarabeus 
was in ancient times worshipped by the Egyptians. t Isa., Ix., 6 



S80 



shall show forth the praise of the Lord.' " Such facts may 
be numbered among the tokens that the time approaches. 
And when it shall be come, nothing shall be wanting for the 
completion of the promises : but the ships of Tarshish jirst^ 
shall be as ready as the camels of the desert. 

The God of Israel is the Lord of Hosts. He ruleth ever 
by his power; bis eyes behold the nations. Nebuchadnez- 
zar, who said in the pride of his heart, while the Jews were 
captives in Babylon, " Is not this great Babylon that I have 
built for the house of the kingdom, by the might of my pow- 
er, and for the honour of my majesty ?" was constrained to 
take up another language, and to " bless the Most High, 
and to praise and honour him that liveth forever and ever, 
whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his king- 
dom from generation to generation."* The kings of the 
earth are but the executioners of his purposes, the instru- 
ments of his power. He is head of them, and of all their 
hosts, though they know it not. And the result of all they 
do, though their own design be frustrated, is inevitably that 
which the Lord has determined. According to His word, 
the land of Israel has bereaved the nations of men ; the 
worst of the heathen have possessed it ; and it has been de. 
voured by strangers, till the v/ork assigned them has been 
completed ; and, it may be, other work has now to be done 
by other hands. For promoting or securing the peace of 
Europe, according to their design, the sovereigns of Britain, 
Austria, Prussia, and Russia entered into a convention for 
expelling the Pasha of Egypt from Syria ; and who can say 
that this new interference with its destinies may not be the 
beginning of a greater work, in which kings shall be the 
carpenters for the reconstruction of the Jewish state. The 
world has seen what the Lord has done to the city called 
by his name, and to the people whom He did choose out of 
all the nations of the earth ; and the world has yet to see 
what the Lord will do for Israel. Future history may be 
read in the Scriptures, like the past which was future when 
they were written. " Cry yet, saying. Thus saith the Lord 
of Hosts, My cities through prosperity shall yet be spread 
abroad, and the Lord shall yet comfort Zion, and shall yet 
choose Jerusalem. Then lifted I up mine eyes, and saw, 
and behold four horns. And I said unto the angel that talk- 
ed with me, What be these ? And he answered me, These 

* Dan., iv., 34. 



CONCLUSION. 



381 



are the horns which have scattered Judah, Israel, and Je- 
rusalem. And the Lord showed me four carpenters. Then 
said I, What came these to do ? And He spake, saying, 
These are the horns which have scattered Judah, so that 
no man could lift up his head ; but these are come to fray 
them, to cast out the horns of the Gentiles, which lifted up 
their horn over the land of Judah to scatter it."* 

The time has been long during which no man of Judab 
could lift up his head ; but, now that the period is come whe» 
the cities are desolate without inhabitant, and the land re- 
duced to a tenth, so there are men of Judah who do lift up 
their heads, and rank among the chief men of the earth 
from among whom the Lord will take his people. It would 
thus seem as if the time of the horns that scattered and op- 
pressed them were passing away, and that of the carpenters, 
to whom the work of re-erection is assigned, were at hand. 

In answer to the question, Watchman, what of the night ? 
Watchman, what of the night 1 The watchman said, the 
morning comeih, and also the night : if ye will inquire, inquire 
ye : return, come. Repeated inquiry, here permitted, may 
be needed ; but it will not always be in vain. 

Of the order of unfulfilled predictions, as marked in Scrip- 
ture, the author has already ventured to write ; and it was 
his design to have here entered on the inquiry concerning 
the time of Israel's restoration, and on other kindred themes, 
touching the completion of the covenant with Abraham con- 
cerning the land, and the covenant with David concerning his 
throne, and the glorious things that are written and ought to 
be believed concerning Jerusalem. These, however, would 
require another volume, for whicli, if the Lord will, they are 
reserved. In the preceding pages he has, perhaps not un- 
timely, touched upon a subject that is but the introduction to 
other themes, to which speedily, it is his firm belief, the at- 
tention of the world will not need to be directed, but be ne- 
cessarily drawn, consequent as they are, in their scriptural 
connexion and order, on facts already abundantly adduced,* 
and coeval as they shall be with Israel's restoration. As 
the blindness of Israel as a people was to continue until the 
cities should be desolate without inhabitant and the houses 
without man, &c., so the same Lord, who announced the 
fact when He appeared to Isaiah in his glory, while he was 
manifest in the flesh, wept over Jerusalem and foretold its 

* Zech.j i., 17-21. "f Signs of the Times, last chapter. 



382 



CONCLUSION. 



destruction, gave another measure of the time during* which 
it should be trodden of the Gentiles, even until the times of 
the Gentiles should be fulfilled, and judgments come without 
exception on all the nations of the earth. The fulfilling of 
the times of the Gentiles, of which the prophets of old had 
not kept silence, affects all nations, and is thus clearly syn- 
chronical with the time when Jerusalem and the land of 
Israel shall cease to be trodden down by them. 

Hitherto, during many ages, the nations of the earth, save 
those on whom by name judgments have fallen, have been, 
as it were, spectators of what the Lord has done to Israel 
and to the land ; and they have been willing and active 
agents, too, in the execution of the punishments that have 
come upon the Jews, and in the spoliation and desolation 
to which the land has been subjected. But they shall not 
always be spectators merely of what the Lord hath deter- 
mined to do. Jeremiah, to whom it was given to speak so 
clearly of the new and everlasting covenant of the Lord 
with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, was 
commissioned and commanded to take the winecup of the 
fury of the Lord, first given to Jerusalem, and cause all the 
nations to drink it unto whom the Lord had sent it. Nor 
was it given so that they should certainly be caused to 
drink of it, as certainly they have, only to the nations enu- 
merated one by one in the same judgment-roll, but also 
finally to all the kingdoms of the world that are upon the 
face of the earth. " Therefore shalt thou say unto them, 
Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, Drink ye, 
and be drunken, and spew, and fall and rise no more, be- 
cause of the sword which I will send among you. And it 
shall be, if they refuse to take the cup at thine hand to 
drink, then shalt thou say unto them, thus saith the Lord, 
Ye shall certainly drink ; for, lo, / begin to iring evil upon 
the city, which is called by my name, and should ye be utterly 
unpunished ? Ye shall not be unpunished ; for I will call 
for a sword upon all the inhabitants of the earth, saith the 
Lord of Hosts. A noise shall come even to the ends of the 
earth ; for the Lord hath a controversy with the nations ; He 
will plead with all fiesh ; He will give them that are wicked 
to the sword, saith the Lord,"* &c. 

We have seen somewhat of the curses of a legal cove- 
nant, which are set forth practically in the sight of all think' 

* Jer., XXV., 27-3J, 



CONCLUSION. 



383 



ififf as well as all believing men ; we have seen somewhat 
of ihe judgments which the Lord has brought on his own 
chosen people, and on the city called by his name, and on 
the people of old denominated his own ; and the question 
put bv the Lord to the people of all other cities and coun- 
tries may be heard by all ihe nations and all. the kingdoms 
of the world, as addressed individually to each. Art thou he 
that shall escape 1 The vision seen by Daniel, in which 
the sanctuary was trodden down, was for many days.* 
And when the angel revealed to him what should befall his 
people in the latter days, the time appointed was long.i But 
the long time has to be succeeded by a short work. Esaias 
crieth concerning Israel, saith the apostle, " Though the 
number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, 
a remnant shall be saved : for He will finish the work, and 
cut it short in righteousness, for a short work will the Lord 
make upon the earth.\ The Lord, saith the prophet, shall 
go forth as a mighty man ; He shall stir up jealousy like 
a man of war ; He shall cry, yea, roar ; He shall prevail 
against his enemies. I have long holden my peace ; I 
have been still, and refrained myself : now will I cry like 
a travailing woman ; I will destroy and devour at once, &c. 
And I will bring the blind by a way that they know not ; I 
will make darkness light before them, and crooked things 
straight. These things will I do unto them, and not for- 
sake lhem."§ 

It is for the glory of the Lord that, during many ages 
while Israel has been in blindness, the Gospel has been 
preached unto the Gentiles, that a people might be taken 
from among them to the Lord. But when the question shall 
be raised, as we think it has already begun to be, between 
the Church and the world, whether spiritual independence 
can be maintained within the Church in connexion with any 
kingdom on earth — vvhether Christ be, in fact, the Head of 
his church and the King of nations — it is not, without irrev- 
erence we may say, it is not for the glory of the Redeemer's 
crown that such a question, when fairly raised, should for a 
long time be held practically in doubtful disputation. If the 
time he come that judgment must begin at the house of God, 
what shall the end be of those that obey not the Gospel ? If 
the Lord's fan be taken into his hand, He will not lay it down 
till he thoroughly purge his floor, and separate the wheat 
from the chaff, the one for the kingdom that shall endure for- 

* Dan., viii., 26, t Ibid , x., 1. t Rom., ix., 28. ^ Isa., xlii., 15, 16. 



384 



CONCLUSION. 



ever, the other for the fire that never shall be quenched. 
Persecuting powers, imperial and papal, were successively 
to arise against the Church, and power was given lo the beast 
for a time, and time and a half. But these times have an 
end ; and the judgment of the mighty city, which destroyed 
Jerusalem and has persecuted the saints, shall come in one 
hour. And when the Lord's controversy with the nations 
because of his people Israel shall begin, it too shall be quick- 
ly finished. The denouement of the history of the world in- 
cludes, and shall resolve, every controversy with the nations 
of the earth concerning the seed of Abraham, whether by 
the flesh or in the faith. All things shall be shaken, that 
the things which cannot be shaken may remain. The counsel 
and covenant of the Lord, which cannot be shaken, shall re- 
main. The kingdoms of this world shall become as the chaff 
of the summer thrashing-floor, even as the chaff before the 
wind, and the thistle-down before the whirlwind, but the cov- 
enant which the Lord made with Abraham, and with Isaac, 
and with Jacob shall be established forever ; and all the fam- 
ilies of the earth, blessed in their seed, shall see, in open 
vision at last, how the covenant of the Lord with David con- 
cerning his throne harmonizes at once with the Abrahamic of 
old, and with the new and everlasting covenant of mercy and 
of peace which, after all the days of dispersion and desolation 
are past, the Lord will make with the house of Israel and 
with the house of Judah. *' In that day there shall be a root 
of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people ; to it 
shall the Gentiles seek, and his rest shall be glorious. And 
the Lord shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall as- 
semble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the disper- 
sed of Judah from the four corners of the earth." " And in 
that day shalt thou say, Lord, I will praise thee : though 
thou wast angry with me, thine anger is turned away, and 
thou comfortedst me. Behold, God is my salvation ; I will 
trust and not be afraid ; for the Lord Jehovah is my strength 
and my song ; he also is become my salvation. Therefore 
with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation. 
And in that day shall ye say, Praise the Lord, call upon his 
name, declare his doings among the people, make mention 
that his name is exalted. Sing unto the Lord, for he hath 
done excellent things ; this is known in all the earth. Cry 
out and shout, thou inhabitant of Zion, for great is the Holy 
One of Israel in the midst of thee."* 



* laa., xi., 10, 13, &c. laa., xil. 



APPENDIX. 



No. I.— Page 82. 

Inste ad of keeping up to one uniform translation of Nah al Mitz- 
raim, the LXX. sometimes render it ^dpay^ AiyvvTov, the Gulf of 
Egypt: Josh., xv., 4. Sometimes Yioraiiog AiyviTTnv, the River of 
Egypt: 1 Kings, viii., 65; Gen., xv., 18. Sometimes Xst/in^pog 
hiyvnTov, the Torrent of Egypt : 2 Chron., vii., 8 ; 2 Kings, xxiv., 
7; Numb., xxxiv., 5; Josh., xv., 47; and, in the text before us, 
FivoKopovpoc ; hereby perplexing the very nature and quality, as 
well as the geograptiical circumstances of this river, by attribu- 
ting to it four different appellations. The like disagreement we 
may observe in their translation of ^niJ'' linti' "lin'U'' Sikor or 
Shihor, another name, as it will appear to be, of the River of Esypt. 
For 1 Chron., xiii., 5, where the original has [i, from Sihor of Eo^ypt, 
the LXX. render it uko bpiuv Alyinrrov, from the Borders of E<jypt. 
In Jer., ii., 18, for the waters of Sihor, they have the waters of TriC)v, 
a river which encompassed the whole land of Chus, a province of Arabia, 
Gen., ii., 13. In Josh., xiii., 3, instead of Sihor, which is before 
Egypt, they have uko Tfjg aoLKrjTov yrjq Kara npSauTTOv 'AtyvTrTov, from, 
the uninhabited land that lies before Egypt. And in Isa., xxiii., 3, for 
the seed of Sihor, they have a-Kepfia fie ra^oAuv, the seed of the mer- 
chants ; mistaking a q, Samech, for a ^t, Shin, or "iniy- 
geographical criticism, therefore, little stress can be laid upon the 
authority of the LXX. version, where the phrase so frequently varies 
from the original, and v^^here so many different interpretations are 
put upon one and the same thing. — Shaw's Travels, p. 24. 



No. II.— Page 155, 156. 

EXTRACTS FROM THE ITINERARY OF ANTONINUS 

AUGUSTUS. 



Ab Antiochia usque ad 
Pelusium. 



Platanos 
Calhela . 
Laodiceam 
Gabalam 
Balanea 
Antaradon 
Areas . 
Tripolim 
Byblon . 
Beryhim 
Sidonem 
Tyrum . 
Ptolemaiada 
Sycaminon 
Caesaream . 
Betaron . . 



25 
24 
16 
18 
27 
24 
32 
18 
36 
34 
30 
24 
32 
24 
20 
18 



Diospolim . . 
Lammiam . . 
Ascalonem 
Gazain . . . 
Raphiam . . 
Rhinocorura , 
Ostracenam . 
Cassium . . 
Pentas-choenin 
Pelusium , . 



22 
12 
20 
16 
22 
22 
26 
26 
20 
20 



Iter a Pelusio Memphim, 
122 miles. 

Daphnem .... 16 
Jacasarat .... 18 

Thou 24 

Scenas Veterano- 

rum 26 

K K 



Helin . 
Memphim 



14 

24 



Item ab Antiochia Erne- 
sam, 133 miles. 

Niacr.aba .... 25 
Caperturi .... 24 
Apameam .... 20 
Larissam .... 16 
Epiphaniam ... 16 
Arethusam ... 16 
Emesam .... 16 

Item a Carris Hierapo- 
Urn, 83 miles. 

Bathas 30 

Thilaticomum . . 22 
Hierapolim ... 31 



386 



APPENDIX. 



Item a Cyrrho Emesam, 



151 miles. 

Minnizam .... 20 
Beroatn. . , . .22 
Chalcida .... 18 

Arrana 20 

Cappareas .... 23 
Epiphaniam ... 16 
Arethusam ... 16 
Em^sam .... 16 

Item a Doliche Serianem 
Anunea, 127 miles. 

Cyrrhon .... 24 
Minnozam ... 24 
Beroam .... 20 
Chalcida .... 15 
Andronam .... 26 
Serianem .... 18 



Item a Callecome Laris- 
sam, 79 miles. 

Chalcida .... 18 
Temmelison ... 20 



Apamea .... 25 
Larissam . . . .16 

Item a Bemmari Neapo- 
lim, 227 miles. 



Geroda 40 

Thelseas . . . .16 
Damascum ... 24 

A ere 32 

Neve 30 

Capitoliada ... 36 
Gadaram .... 16 
Scythopolim ... 16 
In Medio .... 10 
Neapolim .... 7 

Item a Seriane Scytho- 
polim, 318 miles. 

Salaminiada ... 32 
Emesam .... 18 
Laodiciam .... 18 

Lybon 32 

Heliopolim ... 32 

Abilam 38 

Damascum ... 18 





32 




30 


Capitoliada . . . 


36 




16 


Scythopolim . . . 


16 


Item a Ccesarea Eleuthe- 


ropolim, 77 miles. 




Betaron . . . . 


31 


Diospolim . . . . 


28 


Eleutheropolim . . 


18 


Item a Damasco Eme- 


sam, 142 miles. 






38 


HeliopoUm . . . 


22 




32 


Laodicia . . . . 


32 


Emesam . . . . 


18 


Item a Neapoli Ascalo' 


nem, 74 miles. 






31 


Eleutheropolim . . 


20 


Ascalonem . . . 


24 



INDEX OF TEXTS. 



OENESIS. 

v. , 8, p. 61. 

vi. , 12, 13, p. 24. 
X., 18, p. 90. 

— 19, 30, p. 19. 

xii. , 1-6, p. 20. 

— 7, p. 60. 

xiii. , 14, 15, 17, p. 20. 

— 14, 15-17, p. 61. 

xiv. , 3, p. 123. 

— 23, p. 62. 
XV., 1, p. 20. 

— 1-7, p. 21. 

— 7-12, 17, &c., p. 21. 

— 7, p. 19. 

— 13-18, p. 26. 

— 18-23, p. 62. 

xvi. , 10, p. 133. 

— 12, p. 133. 

xvii. , 7, 8, p. 22. 

— 9, 13, p. 22. 

— 20, p. 132. 

xviii. , 27, p. 29. 
xxi., 14, p. 133. 
xxvi., 1-4, p. 22. 

— 3-5, p. 63. 
xxviii., 1, 3, 14, p. 63. 



xxviii., 4, p. 22, 

— 13-15, p. 23. 
XXXV., 9-12, p. 23. 

— 12, p. 63. 
xlvi., 1-4, p. 23. 
xlvii., 29, 30, p. 23. 
xlviii., 4, p. 23. 
xlix., 29-32, p. 23. 
1., 24, 25, p. 23. 



EXODUS. 

ii. , 25, p. 28. 

iii. , 1-15, p. 27. 

— 6, p. 60. 

— 8, p. 63. 

v. , 7, p. 26. 

— 12-17, p. 28. 

vi. , 1-8, p. 27. 

— 9, p. 27. 
xii., 31, p. 28. 

xiv., 22, 28, 29, p. 28. 
xxiii., 30-33, p. 64. 

xxxiii. , 2, p. 77. 

xxxiv. , 11, p. 77. 

— 27, p. 29. 
XXXV., 12, p. 63. 



LEVITICUS. 

xxvi., 19, 20, p. 371. 
— 32-34, 35, 43, p. 372. 
~ 40-45, p. 37. 



NUMBERS. 

xiii. , 1, 2, 17-28, p. 339. 

xiv. , 11, 12, p. 30. 

— 15, 16, 21-25, p. 30. 
xxi., 23-26, 33-35, p.l43. 

— 33-35, p. 254. 

xxiii. , 17-19, p. 56. 

xxiv. , 17, 18, p. 71. 
xxvi., 51, p. 146. 

xxxi. , 10, 32-34, 48-52, 
p. 144. 

xxxii. , 1-4, p. 144. 

— 33, p. 144. 

xxxiii. , 36, 37, p. 128. 

xxxiv. , 1-4, p. 127. 

— 6, p. 86. 

— 6-11, p. 65. 

— 7-11, p. 87. 

— 7-9, p. 113. 

— 8, 9, p. 120. 



APPENDIX. 



387 



DEUTERONOMY. 

i. , 46, p. 128. 

ii. , 1-5, 8, p. 128. 

— 8, p. 129. 

— 2-5, 9, 19, p. 71. 

iii. , 3-10, p. 143. 

— 10, p. 254. 

iv. , 30, 31, p. 37. 

vi. , 11, p. 143. 

vii. , 22, p. 147. 

— 24, p. 77. 

viii. , 7-9, p. 142, 370. 
xi., 11, 12, p. 142, 370. 

— 22-26, p. 64. 

— 24, p. 113. 

xxvii. , 16-19, p. 33. 

— 26, p. 41. 

xxviii. , 49, 51, 52, p. 153. 

xxix. , 28, p. 39. 

— 10-25, p. 33. 
XXX., 1-10, p. 38. 
~ 7, p. 45. 

— 19, 20, p. 38. 

JOSHUA. 

iii., 16, p. 128. 

v. , 13, 14, p. 59. 
X., 10, p. 294. 
xi., 5, 7, p. 147. 

— 10, p. 299. 
xiii., 1, p. 65, 75. 

— 2-6, p. 65. 

— 4-6, p. 87. 

— 9-31, p. 144. 
XV., 20-63, p. 148. 
xviii., 3, p. 73. 
xxi., 45, p. 73. 

— 41, p. 148. 

xxiii. , 14, p. 73. 

— 11-15, p. 74. 

xxiv. , 13, p. 143. 

— 19, 20, p. 39. 

— 22, &c., p. 34. 
xxiv., 31, p. 73. 

JUDGES. 

i. , 31, p. 304. 

ii. , 11-14, p. 74. 

— 20-23, p. 75. 

1 SAMUEL. 

XV., 20, p. 56. 
xxxi., 10, p. 296. 

2 SAMUEL. 

v., 17-25, p. 79. 
viii., 1, 2, 3, 5-8, 11, 14, 
p. 79. 

— 3, 8, p. 114. 



1 KINGS. 

iv. , 21-24, p. 79. 

— 25, p. 78, 80. 
ix., 20, 21, p. 78. 

— 21, 26, p. 80. 

xi.,9, 12, 14, 23, 26, p. 78. 

2 KINGS. 

xiii, , 3, p. 93. 

xiv. , 25-28, p. 94. 
xviii., 32, p. 142. 

1 CHRONICLES. 

v. , 9, 18-22, p. 145. 
xvi., 11-19, p. 49. 

xviii. , 1, 3, 5-8, 9-13, p. 
79. 

— 6, p. 118. 
xxi., 5, p. 149. 

2 CHRONICLES. 

viii. , 3-6, p. 80. 

— 5, p. 294. 

— 7, 8, 17, p. 80. 

ix. , 26, p. 79. 
xiii., 3, p. 149. 

PSALMS. 

xvi. , 10, p. 58. 
Ix., 7, p. 287. 
Ixviii., 18, p. 58. 
Ixix., 35, 36, p. 306. 
Ixxxix., 1-4, p. 45. 

— 19, 20, 24-36, p. 45. 

— 28, p. 50. 

— 34, p. 19. 
cv., 4-12, p. 49. 
c.xxvi., 1-5, p. 284. 

SONG OP SOLOMON. 

iii., 8, p. 124. 

ISAIAH. 

ii., 3, p. 370. 

vi. , 9-13, p. xiii. 

— 11, p. 244. 

vii. , 8, p. 93. 

viii. , 20, p. 58. 

ix. , 8, p. 45. 

xi. , 3, p. 377. 

— 10, 12, &c., p. 384. 

— 10, 14, p. 72. 

xii. , 10, p. 377. 

— p. 384. 

xvii. , 6, p. 338. 

xix. , 23-25, p. 95 137. 

— 24, p. 334. 

xxiii. , 3, p. 85. 

xxiv. , 5, p. 324. 

— 6, p. XV. 



xxiv., 5, 6, p. 157. 
XXV., 9-11, p. 72. 
xxvii., 5, 6, 10, p. 336. 

— 10, p. 243. 
xxix., 17, p. 353. 

xxxii. , 14, p. 243. 

— 13-15, or 18, p. 336. 

xxxiii. , 9, p. 280, 361. 
XXXV., 1, 2, p. 361. 
xl., 8, 9, p. 307. 

xli., 4, p. 58. 
xiii., 15, 16, p. 383. 
xliv., 6, 7, p. 58. 

— 23, 26, p. 307. 
xlv., 17, p. 307. 
li., 2, 3, p. 349. 
Iii., 1, 8-10, p. 47. 

— 9, p. 349. 
liii., 8, p. 55. 
liv., 2, p. 308. 
Iv., 1-3, p. 45. 

— 12, 13, p. 360, 370. 
Ivi., 1, p. 124. 

Iviii., 12, p. 243. 

— 11-14, p. 373. 
Ix., 6, p. 379. 

— 7, p. 132. 

— 8, p. 377. 

— 10, p. 320. 

— 15, p. 349. 

— 30, 31, p. 43. 
Ixi., 4, p. 56. 

— 5-7, p. 359. 
Ixii., 1-4, &c., p. 56. 

— 11, 12, p. ix. 
Ixiii., 17, 19, p. 46. 
Ixiv., 1, p. 46. 

— 4, p. 46. 
Ixv., 10, 361. 
Ixviii., 18, p. 58. 

JEREMIAH. 

ii. , 14-18. p. 85. 

— 28, p. 306. 

iii. , 12, 14. 17, p. 124. 

iv. , 29, p. 244. 

xi. , 3, p. 41. 

xii. , 12, p. 169. 

— 13, p. 371. 

xxiii. , 3-8, p. 59. 

— 28, 29, 37, p. 60. 

xxiv. , 7, p. 50. 
XXV., 27-31, p. 382. 
xxxi., 5, p. 346. 

— 5-9, p. 351. 

— 21, p. 295. 

— 20, 21, p. 51. 

— 23, 28, p. 44. 

— 31, &c., p. 42. 

— 35-40, p. 44. 



388 



xxxii. , 36-41, p. 52. 

xxxiii. , 9, p 141. 

— 13-15, p. 307. 

— 14, 16, p. 59. 

— 24-26, p. 58. 
xlvii., 5-7, p. 225. 

— 6, 7, p. 201, 
xlviii., 47, p. 72, 229. 
x!ix., 6, p. 72, 229. 

— 25. p. 210. 

— 33, p. 299. 
1., 19, p. 287. 

EZEKIEL. 

vii., 21, p. 169. 
xii., 19. p. 280. 
xvi., 53, 55, p. 294. 
.XX., 6, p. 142, 370. 
XXV., 5, p. 236. 

— 10, p. 319. 
xxix., 14, 15, p. 202. 
XXXV., 9-14, p. 229. 

xxxvi. , 3, p. 340. 

— 11, p. 209. 

— 4, 7-11, 12-15,29, 30, 

34-36, p. 342. 
~ 26, p. 50. 

— 34, p. 374. 

xxxvii. , 19-26, p. 57. 
xlvii., 13, 14, p. 60, 81. 

— 13-23, p. 66. 

— 15, p. 87. 

— 15, 16, p. 120. 

— 15-17, p. 87, 113. 

— 19, p. 128. 

— 20, p. 86. 

xlviii., 1, p. 66, 87, 94, 
113, 120. 

— 23-29, p. 130. 

DANIEL. 

iv., 34, p. 380. 
ix., 26, 27, p. 54. 
X., 14, p. 377. 

xi. , 5, p. 320. 

— 39, p. 164. 

xii. , 4, p. 270, 377. 



HOS&A. 

i., 11, p. 363. 
iii., 4, 5, p. 51. 

xi. , 8, 9, p. 50. 

— 21, 22, p. 371. 

xii. , 5, p. 58. 

JOEL. 

i. , 4, p. 191. 

iii., 18, 20, 21, p. 370. 

AMOS. 

v., 3, p. XV., 306. 
ix., 11, 12, 15, p. 72. 

— 13, p. 279. 

— 13-15, p. 370. 

OBADIAH. 

18, 19, p. 72. 

19, p. 346. 

MICAH. 

iii. , 6, p. 53. 

iv. , 4, p. 371. 

— 7, 8, p. 126. 

— 8, p. 119. 

vii. , 14, 15, p. 145. 

— 14, 15, 19, 20, p. 288. 

ZEPHANIAH. 

ii. , 7, p. 227, 319. 

— 9, p. 72. 

ZECHAKIAH. 

i. , 17, p. 336. 

— 17-21, p. 331. 

ii. , 11, p. 334. 

iii. , 10, p. 301. 

iv. , 7, p. 47. 

viii. , 26, p. 383. 
X., 1, p. 383. 

— 10, p. 288, 353. 
xiv., 16, 17, p. 377. 

— 20, p. 334. 

MATTHEW. 

xviii., 2, 3, p. 160. 
xxiii., 7, p. 161. 



xxiii., 37-39, p. 54. 
xxvi., 53, 54, p. 55. 

MARK. 

viii. , 45, p. 300. 
X., 42-44, p. 160. 

LUKE. 

i., 39, 65, p. 340. 
xxi., 24, p. 54. 

JOHN. 

i., 1, p. 59. 
iv., 24, p. 164. 

ACTS. 

i., 3, 6, p. 54. 
vii., 2, p. 19. 

IX. , 17, 28, p. 161. 

ROMANS. 

ix. , 28, p. 383. 

xi. , 28, 29, p. 47. 

GALATIANS. 

iii., 8, p. 48. 

— 10, p. 41. 

— 15, p. 55. 

— 17, p. 42. 

— 17, 18, p. 35. 

HEBREWS. 

iii., 14, p. 30. 

X. , 1, p. 78 

vi. , 18, p. 48. 

vii. , 19, p. 32. 

viii. , 7-13, p. 42. 

2 PETER. 

iii., 9, p. 73. 

REVELATION, 
i., 11, p. 58. 

iii., 12, p. 328. 

— 20, p. 46. 

ix. , 4, p. 165, 167. 

xii. , 6, p. 157. 
xiv., 20, p. 363. 
xviii., 23, p. 337. 



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